Telonemia, a new protist phylum with affinity to chromist lineages.

Recent molecular investigations of marine samples taken from different environments, including tropical, temperate and polar areas, as well as deep thermal vents, have revealed an unexpectedly high diversity of protists, some of them forming deep-branching clades within important lineages, such as the alveolates and heterokonts. Using the same approach on coastal samples, we have identified a novel group of protist small subunit (SSU) rDNA sequences that do not correspond to any phylogenetic group previously identified. Comparison with other sequences obtained from cultures of heterotrophic protists showed that the environmental sequences grouped together with Telonema, a genus known since 1913 but of uncertain taxonomic affinity. Phylogenetic analyses using four genes (SSU, Hsp90, alpha-tubulin and beta-tubulin), and accounting for gamma- and covarion-distributed substitution rates, revealed Telonema as a distinct group of species branching off close to chromist lineages. Consistent with these gene trees, Telonema possesses ultrastructures revealing both the distinctness of the group and the evolutionary affinity to chromist groups. Altogether, the data suggest that Telonema constitutes a new eukaryotic phylum, here defined as Telonemia, possibly representing a key clade for the understanding of the early evolution of bikont protist groups, such as the proposed chromalveolate supergroup.

Phylogenetic analyses indicate that the 19'Hexanoyloxy-fucoxanthin-containing dinoflagellates have tertiary plastids of haptophyte origin.

The three anomalously pigmented dinoflagellates Gymnodinium galatheanum, Gyrodinium aureolum, and Gymnodinium breve have plastids possessing 19'-hexanoyloxy-fucoxanthin as the major carotenoid rather than peridinin, which is characteristic of the majority of the dinoflagellates. Analyses of SSU rDNA from the plastid and the nuclear genome of these dinoflagellate species indicate that they have acquired their plastids via endosymbiosis of a haptophyte. The dinoflagellate plastid sequences appear to have undergone rapid sequence evolution, and there is considerable divergence between the three species. However, distance, parsimony, and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analyses of plastid SSU rRNA gene sequences place the three species within the haptophyte clade. Pavlova gyrans is the most basal branching haptophyte and is the outgroup to a clade comprising the dinoflagellate sequences and those of other haptophytes. The haptophytes themselves are thought to have plastids of a secondary origin; hence, these dinoflagellates appear to have tertiary plastids. Both molecular and morphological data divide the plastids into two groups, where G. aureolum and G. breve have similar plastid morphology and G. galatheanum has plastids with distinctive features.