Multigene Phylogenies of Diverse Carpediemonas-like Organisms Identify the Closest Relatives of ‘Amitochondriate’ Diplomonads and Retortamonads

The Eukaryotic Tree of Life from a Global Phylogenomic Perspective

“…A strong molecular confirmation of this grouping is currently lacking, which is at least, in part, attributable to the high rates of sequence evolution of most of its putative constituent lineages. Single-gene phylogenies (e.g., Kolisko et al 2008;Takishita et al 2012) and phylogenomics (Rodriguez-Ezpeleta et al 2007a;Hampl et al 2009) have generally recovered the monophyly of the group when the fast-evolving taxa are excluded, but some lineages, such as Malawimonas, have eluded robust placement (Hampl et al 2009;Zhao et al 2012).…”

Early evolution of eukaryote feeding modes, cell structural diversity, and classification of the protozoan phyla Loukozoa, Sulcozoa, and Choanozoa

“…(2) corresponding rank reductions of its constituent taxa Anaeromonada and Trichozoa from subphylum to infraphylum; (3) establishing the previously unranked Fornicata (Simpson 2003) as a new superclass in Trichozoa; (4) reducing Eopharyngea in rank from superclass to class and abandoning the eopharyngean classes and subclasses, retaining only orders Diplomonadida (its formerly separate orders now suborders) and Retortamonadida; this simplification is allowed by the demonstration that Enteromonas and Trimitus evolved by independent cellular halving from diplomonad ancestors, making a separate subclass and order undesirable for the polyphyletic enteromonads (Kolisko et al 2008), but there is no need to suppress the family, here restricted to Enteromonas to make it monophyletic; (5) Establishing a new order Dysnectida for Dysnectes, which is robustly sister to Eopharyngea plus Retortamonas but more distant from Carpediemonadida on a 7-gene tree (Takishita et al 2012 (Gile and Slamovits 2012). The five new classes ofČepička et al (2010), each with but one order, are unnecessary as their phenotypic disparity is insufficient to merit class rank.…”

Biology, Diversity and Ecology of Free-Living Heterotrophic Flagellates

“…All metamonads have no typical mitochondria but probable relics of mitochondria (hydrogenosomes or mitosomes) are detected in some taxa (e.g., Dolezal et al 2005 ;Schneider et al 2011 ;Takishita et al 2012 ). Most known species of metamonads are symbiotic (sometimes parasitic) fl agellates in metazoans, including humans, but some free-living species inhabiting low-oxygen marine and freshwater environments are known.…”

“…In addition, most fornicates lack typical Golgi bodies. In the Fornicata, some free-living fl agellates inhabiting marine sediments such as Carpediemonas , Dysnectes , Ergobibamus , Hicanonectes and Kipferlia represent a paraphyletic basal grade (e.g., Takishita et al 2012 ). These fl agellates called Carpediemonas -like organisms (CLOs) possess two fl agella in which the paraxial vanes are on the posterior fl agellum.…”

“…Although almost all retortamonads are symbiotic, a free-living species, C. cuspidate , has been reported from marine and freshwater low-oxygen environments (Bernard et al 1997 ). Recent molecular data suggest that retortamonads are paraphyletic in the Fornicata (Takishita et al 2012 ).…”