Molecular Phylogeny and Taxonomy of Two Novel Brackish Water Hypotrich Ciliates, with the Establishment of a New Genus, Antiokeronopsis gen. n. (Ciliophora, Hypotrichia)

Abstract

Two novel brackish water urostyloid ciliates, Anteholosticha paramanca sp. n. and Antiokeronopsis flava gen. n., sp. n., isolated from the Shenzhen Mangrove Nature Protection Area on the coast of the South China Sea, were investigated using live observation and protargol impregnation techniques. Anteholosticha paramanca sp. n. is characterized by its spherical yellowish cortical granules arranged in lines, shortened midventral complex and three transverse cirri. Morphogenesis is similar to that in Anteholosticha manca. The new genus Antiokeronopsis is diagnosed by having a continuous adoral zone of membranelles, frontal cirri arranged in a bicorona, midventral complex composed of midventral pairs only, one marginal cirral row on each side, the presence of frontoterminal and transverse cirri, and the lack of buccal and caudal cirri. The type species A. flava sp. n. is characterized by its elongated body shape, brown to yellowish body color and two types of cortical granules. Small subunit ribosomal RNA gene sequence data justify the classification of both species. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that A. paramanca clusters with Bakuella subtropica within a clade that includes two other Anteholosticha species, while Antiokeronopsis groups within the core urostylids and is most closely related to the well-known genera Pseudokeronopsis and Uroleptopsis.

Morphology and Molecular Phylogeny of Two New Brackish Water Ciliates of Bakuella (Ciliophora: Urostylida: Bakuellidae) from South Korea

“…subtropica appeared to have a close relationship with Anteholosticha group I (A. manca and A. multicirrata ;Park et al 2013). These four species have similar morphogenetic processes, for instance: (1) in the proter, parental adoral membranelles are completely replaced by oral primordium; (2) in the opisthe, oral primordium commences near the left midventral pairs; (3) new marginal rows and dorsal kineties are formed within the parental one; and (4) the macronuclear nodules fuse into a single mass Fan et al 2014;Li et al 2008;Park et al 2013). The main diagnostic character for discriminating the two genera is the midventral cirral row (absent in Anteholosticha vs. present in Bakuella).…”

Redescription of two little-known urostyloid ciliates, Anteholosticha randani (Grolière, 1975) Berger, 2003 and A. antecirrata Berger, 2006 (Ciliophora, Urostylida)

“…anterior end of the left marginal row curved rightwards, the bipartite adoral zone and the buccal cirrus distinctly ahead of the paroral). Berger (2003Berger ( , 2006 noted that Anteholosticha is non-monophyletic and this was subsequently supported by molecular data (Fan et al 2014b;Lv et al 2015;Zhao et al 2015). Based upon a phylogenetic analysis of three genes, Huang et al (2014) transferred three species of Anteholosticha, namely A.…”

“…The SSU rRNA gene was amplified by PCR with primers Euk A and Euk B (Medlin et al 1988). Cycling parameters were as follows: 5 min initial denaturation (94 • C) followed by 30 cycles of 45 s at 94 • C, 1 min at 56 • C, and 1 min at 72 • C, with a final extension of 5 min at 72 • C. The PCR product was purified and sequenced directly using primers Euk A, Euk B and three internal primers (Fan et al 2014b). Sequencing in both directions was carried out on an ABI 3700 sequencer (Shanghai Sunny Biotechnology Co., Ltd).…”

“…scutellum, A. petzi and A. warreni, each with its transverse cirri arranged in a roughly U-shaped pseudorow, to the newly established genus Arcuseries. To date, more than 40 nominal species of Anteholosticha have been reported (Fan et al 2014b;Park et al 2013;Xu et al 2011). Several of these, however, are poorly documented, so detailed redescriptions are needed in order to refine the taxonomy and improve the systematics of Anteholosticha and related genera (Berger 2003(Berger , 2006.…”

Redefinition of the hypotrichous ciliate Uncinata, with descriptions of the morphology and phylogeny of three urostylids (Protista, Ciliophora)

“…Recently, much work has been carried out on the systematics of Urostylida, a specialized group of hypotrichs with ventral cirri arranged in a zigzag pattern (Berger, 2006;Chen, X., et al, 2013aChen, X., et al, , 2014Fan et al, 2014aFan et al, , 2014bFan et al, , 2014cHuang, Chen, Song, & Berger, 2014;Jiang et al, 2013;Lv, Shao, Yi, & Warren, 2015;Pan et al, 2013;Yi & Song, 2011). The urostylid genus Uncinata was established by Bullington (1940) with U. gigantea as the type species.…”