Abstract
The status of our knowledge of the organic nutrition of algae has been summarized in tabular form from time to time. Albritton (1954) listed a mere 14 taxa of pigmented algae as having been examined from this point of view. Eight of the 14 were species ofEuglenaand only ‘Nitzschia dosterium' (=Phaeodactylum tricornutumBohlin) was marine. This paucity of information reflected in part the lack of suitable denned culture media as prerequisites of nutritional experiments. By the early 1960s this lack had been overcome to a large extent (see, for example, Provasoli, McLaughlin & Droop, 1957) and Thomas (1968) could list some 280 species, both freshwater and marine, on which nutritional work in terms of organic requirements had been undertaken. The vitamin requirements (or lack of them) of most of these species were known, but knowledge of their ability to grow in the dark on organic carbon sources and of their ability to utilize different nitrogen sources in the light was fragmentary. It still is, despite the fact that some of the gaps in Thomas's tables have been subsequently filled and the list of species has been extended.

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