Title: alga Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - alga DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.14433 Status: current Definition Any of various chiefly aquatic, eukaryotic, photosynthetic organisms, ranging in size from single-celled forms to the giant kelp. Note Algae of various species, often unicells, are used for toxicity testing in ecotoxicology. They are an important component of aquatic food webs. Source - PAC, 2009, 81, 829. 'Glossary of terms used in ecotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2009)' on page 838 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-08-07-09) Other Outputs - html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/14433/html - json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/14433/json - xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/14433/xml Citation: Citation: 'alga' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.14433 License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. Accessed: 2026-07-01T07:59:16+00:00