Found in lakes across the globe, gloeotrichia are notable for the important roles that they play in the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles.

In North America Gloeotrichia appears unexpectedly in many remote oligotrophic lakes during late summer and fall.

Recently Gloeotrichia was also found in 26 of 27 ‘low nutrient’ lakes in New England USA (Carey et al. 2012).

Evidence that Gloeotrichia is meroplanktonic, spending part or most of the year in sediments, comes from mesocosm growth experiments at Lake Erken.

The conclusion is that P-rich sediments enable colony growth and that increasing colony buoyancy during July brings them into the pelagic zone Gloeotrichia is also reported from some remote nutrient rich lakes surrounded by paddy field in West Bengal of India.

Gloeotrichia have been linked to the phosphorus (P) cycle in lakes due to the fact that they transport P from the benthos to the epilimnion when they migrate.

[9] Once Gloeotrichia have stored enough P to sustain colonial formation and growth, they begin to form vacuoles filled with gas to increase their buoyancy and bring them up to the epilimnion.

In Lake Sunapee, Gloeotrichia echinulata have been found to produce microcystin-LR, which could become a risk to the health of humans and aquatic ecosystems.

[12] Gloeotrichia echinulata are found in a variety of ecosystems, but tend to form large, potentially dangerous blooms in lakes with eutrophic and poor ecological status.