ABSTRACT
Microalgae, as yet a mostly untapped biological resource, could be cultivated on nonarable land and utilize industrial flue gas as a carbon source for biofuel production (Gouveia and Oliveira 2009; U.S. Department of Energy 2010; Benemann 2013; Borowitzka and Moheimani 2013; Passell et al. 2013; Wijffels et al. 2013). With more than 100,000 species described (Guiry et al. 2014), eukaryotic microalgae are classified into several major lineages, which are more widely separated genetically than humans are from fungi (Falkowski and Knoll 2007; Chan et al. 2011; Cavalier-Smith 2013; Keeling 2013). Furthermore, with the classification of even many known 64species tenuous, it is unknown how many microalgae species may exist (Krienitz and Bock 2012; Leliaert et al. 2014). Although this chapter focuses on eukaryotic micro-algae, the prokaryotic microalgae belonging to the cyanobacteria, formerly called blue–green algae, also display great diversity (Palinska and Surosz 2014).
