If I have a piece of plastic from the ocean and I want to identify the microorganism roughly into a big group by microscope, how can I know if they are microalgae, bacteria or fungi?
if is green in color 90% chances that it will be microalgae only. Being photosynthesetic in nature and having pigment, we can confirm its as algae. Certain prokaryotes are also involved in biofilm formation on plastic surfaces like Flavobacteriaceae, Erythrobacteraceae, Hyphomonadaceae and Rhodobacteraceae.
By checking under microscope you can identify by the color, most of microalgae have chlorophyll (at X10), and for bacteria or fungi maybe observe their movement or shape. however, Sometime we could be confused under microscope, I suggest to check it on agar agar plate (for algae) or marine agar to make sure.
You can use respective microbe staining methods ( i.e. gram staining for bacteria) and visualize using microscope. Also you can use total plate count method for identifying specific group of microorganisms.
Phuping Sucharitakul : You can study your sample with a fluorescence microscope supplied with a "green" emission filter and a "red" excitation filter. Red emission from your sample may point out to the presence of chlorophyll "a" which is adherent to almost all microalgae. The shape/morphology of cells and colonies might be very helpful too.
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