Abstract
A new marine planktonic ciliate from Taiwan, Strombidium parasulcatum sp. n., is described based on live observations, protargol staining, and molecular data. Its morphological characters are similar to those of Strombidium sulcatum Claparède and Lachmann, 1859 sensu Song et al., 2000 but differ from S. sulcatum sensu Fauré-Fremiet, 1912 and sensu Fauré-Fremiet and Ganier, 1970 by several morphological characters. The 18S rRNA gene sequences of the two forms display 76 base pair differences (about 5%), indicating that they should be considered separate species. The highest observed specific growth rates of S. parasulcatum in culture were 1.79 day–1 over 1 day and 1.52 day–1 over 2 days, both starting at day 5. Bacteria appear to be an important food resource for the cultivation of this medium-sized oligotrich ciliate. This and other recent studies suggest that cryptic species may be common in the genus Strombidium, and an integrative approach including morphological, ecological, and molecular data should be used to address this question.
Highlights
The oligotrich (s. l.) ciliates are a dominant group in the marine microzooplankton
Strombidium sulcatum was first observed by Claparède and Lachmann (1859)
Song et al (2000) found that a detailed redescription concerning the morphology in vivo and infraciliature of S. sulcatum is still necessary because of its high variability in many respects based on the observation of a population from Yellow Sea and suggested an improved diagnosis
Summary
L.) ciliates are a dominant group in the marine microzooplankton They serve as an effective link between the microbial loop and the grazing food chain due to their high abundance and growth rate (Maeda and Carey, 1985; Maeda, 1986; Fileman and Leakey, 2005; Bojanicet al., 2006; Pierce and Turner, 1992; Agatha, 2011a). Knowledge of their functional diversity is important for understanding their roles in nature (Mitra et al, 2016). Due to the phenotypic plasticity and lack of reliable morphological features for many oligotrich ciliates, it is often difficult or even impossible to separate cryptic species based on morphology alone (Katz et al, 2005; Liu et al, 2017)
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