Question

When you have finished looking at the Paramecium specimen, put the cover slip in its designated place. Wash the slide clean. Make a microscopic observation of the prepared slide of dinoflagellates. Draw an example of a dinoflagellate. Identify the following structures: cell wall, flagella, and flagellar groove. 3. 4. dinoflagellate × total magnification = What characteristics of dinoflagellates make them different from their ciliate relatives? By what process would autotrophic dinoflagellates have produced oxygen for the atmosphere? The three organisms you saw in this part of the lab--Plasmodium, Paramecium, and the dinoflagellates-look very different from one another. Why are they grouped in the same clade?

Answer 1

Ans. 1 Dinoflagellates have two whip-like tails known as flagella which help in locomotion while ciliates have hair-like organelles called cillia present all over the surface and shorter in length than flagella which facilitate movement. Also, most ciliates have two types of nuclei, a micronucleus and a macronucleus. This is known as nuclear dimorphism and it is absent in dinoflagellates.

Ans. 2 The autotrophic dinoflagellates possess chloroplasts bounded by three membranes and perform photosynthesis, releasing oxygen in the environment.

Ans. 3 The three organisms are grouped in same clade i.e. SAR because of membrane-bound sacs known as alveoli present beneath the plasma membrane.