Dunaliella salina

Dunaliella salina is a type of halophile unicellular green algae especially found in hypersaline environments, such as salt lakes and salt evaporation ponds. Known for its antioxidant activity because of its ability to create large amount of carotenoids, it is responsible for most of the primary production in hypersaline environments worldwide, and is also used in cosmetics and dietary supplements. Dunaliella salina was named by Emanoil C. Teodoresco of Bucharest, Romania after its original discoverer, Michel Felix Dunal, who first scientifically reported sighting the organism in saltern evaporation ponds in Montpellier, France in 1838. He initially named the organism Haematococcus salinus and Protococcus. The organism was fully described as a new, separate genus simultaneously by Teodoresco and Clara Hamburger of Heidelberg, Germany in 1905. Teodoresco was the first to publish his work, so he is generally given credit for this categorization. Few organisms can survive like D. salina does in such highly saline conditions as salt evaporation ponds. To survive, these organisms have high concentrations of β-carotene to protect against the intense light, and high concentrations of glycerol to provide protection against osmotic pressure. This offers an opportunity for commercial biological production of these substances. It has been thought for a long time that the colour of pink lakes was the result of this alga, as it has been found in many pink lakes and contains substances in a range of hues which include pink. However, research done in Australia since 2015 in Lake Hillier found several species of halophilic bacteria and archaea as well as several species of Dunaliella, nearly all of which contain some pink, red or salmon-coloured pigment. Species in the genus Dunaliella are morphogically similar to Chlamydomonas reinhardtii with the main exception being that Dunaliella lack both a cell wall and a contractile vacuole. Dunaliella has two flagella of equal length and has a single cup-like chloroplast that often contains a central pyrenoid.