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Ten genera of cyanophytes and 73 genera of algae were found in the guts of Aedes, Culex, Anopheles and Culiseta larvae collected in various breeding places of the Elbe-Lowland (Bohemia) and Prague. The quality and quantity of blue-green algae and algae found in mosquito guts depended on their presence in the water of mosquito breeding places and on the feeding type (filter fieders, scrapers) of mosquito larvae. Chlorophycean algae possesing cell wall with sporopollenin and algae with a mucilagenous (jelly) envelope appeared undamaged by the digestive process. Also spores and resting stages tended to pass undamaged through the larval intestine tract.
DAPI fluorescent staining was used to record cytomorphological changes in cyanophytes during the process of digestion by some mosquito larvae. Control cells were red due to fluorescence of chlorophyll and DNA structures (nucleoids) stained with DAPI emitted strong bluish light. Morphology of Cyanothece, Cyanobacterium, Merismopedia, and all Synechococcus strains dramatically changed along the gut. In the foregut, cells did not apparently differ from control. In the hindgut however, no chlorophyll fluorescence was observed, cells exhibited weakly bluish or yellowish fluorescence (typical for dead cells) and no DNA material or polyphosphate granules were observed. However the cells were not apparently broken (except of Cyanothece). The sequence of degradation of the material was chlorophyll, polyphosphate granules and DNA structures. In the strains of Arthrospira, Chroococcus, Microcystis and both Synechocystis strains no fundamental morphological differences were observed among the cells located in fore- and hindgut.