The Glaucophyta: the blue-green plants in a nutshell

The Glaucophyta is one of the three major lineages of photosynthetic eukaryotes, together with viridiplants and red algae, united in the presumed monophyletic supergroup Archaeplastida. Glaucophytes constitute a key algal lineage to investigate both the origin of primary plastids and the evolution of algae and plants. Glaucophyte plastids possess exceptional characteristics retained from their cyanobacterial ancestor: phycobilisome antennas, a...