SYNOPTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE PHYLUM GLAUCOPHYTA

EUKARYA> ARCHAEPLASTIDA> RHODOPLANTAE> GLAUCOPHYTA

GLAUCOPHYTA LINKS

The description of this phylum comes from Bold and Wynne (1985), Van den Hoek et al. (1995), Graham and Wilcox (2000), Kies and Kremer (1990), and Patterson (1999).

I. SYNONYMS: glaucophytes.

II. NUMBER: >13 species (9? genera).

III. PHYLUM CHARACTERISTICS:

A. Structure and Physiology
- Cell Form: Unicellular and loose colonies.
- Flagella: 2 unequal flagella present in most with mastingonemes (text with tooltip) , inserted subapically; 9+0 pseudocilia in some.
- Basal Bodies: Present; with a multi-layered structure (text with tooltip) (MLS) and cruciate flagellar roots (text with tooltip) .
- Cell Covering: Covered by a thick proteinaceous cell wall.
- Chloroplasts: Numerous coccoid cyanelles, dominated by blue-green phycobillins; with chlorophyll a, B-carotene, xanthophylls.
- Food Reserves: True starch free in the cytoplasm.
- Mitochondria: Plate-like cristae.
- Golgi (text with tooltip) : Present and associated with the basal bodies and/or the nucleus.
- Nucleus: Uninucleate.
- Centrioles: Not present.
- Inclusions and Ejectile Organelles: Pulsating vacuole.

B. Mitosis, Meiosis and Life History
- Mitosis: Open; division by infurrowing.
- Meiosis: Not known.
- Sexual Reproduction and Life History: Not known.

C. Ecology: Mainly found in fresh water habitats; rare.

LITERATURE CITED

Baldauf, S. L. 2003. The deep roots of eukaryotes. Science. 300 (5626): 1701-1703.

Bhattacharya, D. T., T. Helmchen, C. Bibeau, and M. Melkonian. 1995a. Comparison of Nuclear-Encoded Small Subunit Ribosomal RNAs Reveal the Evolutionary Position of the Glaucocystophyta. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 12: 415-420.

Bold, H. C. and M. J. Wynne. 1985. Introduction to the Algae. 2nd Edition. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs. NJ.

Bourrelly, P., 1966. Les Algues d’eau Douce. Initiation à la sistematique I. Les Algues Vertes. N. Boubèe, Paris. 511pp.

Bourrelly, P., 1970. Les Algues d’eau Douce. Initiation à la sistematique III. Les algues bleus et rouges, les Eugléniens, Péridiniens et Cryptomonadines. N. Boubée, Paris. 512pp.

Burki, F., K. Shalchian-Tabrizi, and J. Pawlowski. 2008. Phylogenomics reveals a new ‘megagroup’ including most photosynthetic eukaryotes. Biology Letters. 4: 366-369.

Cavalier-Smith T. 1981b. Eukaryote kingdoms: seven or nine?. BioSystems 14: 461-461.

Cavalier-Smith, T. 1982. The origins of plastids. Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society. 17: 289-306.

Cavalier-Smith, T. 1986a. The kingdom Chromista: origin and systematics. In: F. E. Round and D. J. Chapman, eds. Progress in Phycological Research. BioPress Ltd. Bristol, UK. vol. 4, 309–347.

Cavalier-Smith, T. 1988. Origin of the cell nucleus. BioEssays. 9: 72-78.

Cavalier-Smith, T. 2002a. The phagotrophic origin of eukaryotes and phylogenetic classification of Protozoa. International Journal of Systematic Evolutionary Microbiology. 52:297–354.

Cavalier-Smith, T. 2003c. Genomic reduction and evolution of novel genetic membranes and protein-targeting machinery in eukaryote-eukaryote chimaeras (meta-algae). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B. 258:109-134.

Graham, L. E., and L. W. Wilcox. 2000. Algae. Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Keeling P. J. 2004 The diversity and evolutionary history of plastids and their hosts. American Journal of Botany. 91(10): 1481-1493.

Kies L. and B. P. Kremer. 1990. Phylum Glaucocystophyta. In: Margulis L., J. O. Corliss, M. Melkonian, and D. J. Chapman, eds. Handbook of Protoctista. Jones and Bartlett. Boston, pp 152—166.

Kim, E. and L. E. Graham. 2008. EEF2 analysis challenges the monophyly of Archaeplastida and Chromalveolata. PLoS ONE. 3(7): e2621. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002621

Lee, R. E. 1999. Phycology. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK.

Melkonian, M. 1982. Structural and evolutionary aspects of the flagellar apparatus in green algae and land plants. Taxon. 31: 255-265.

Melkonian, M. 1983. Evolution of green algae in relation to endosymbiosis. In: Schenk, H. E. A. and W. Schwemmler, eds. Endocytobiology II. De Gruyter. Berlin-New York. pp. 1003-1007.

Melkonian, M. 1984. Flagellar apparatus ultrastructure in relation to green algal classification. In: Irvine, D. E. G. and D. M. John, eds. Systematics of the Green Algae. Academic Press. London/Orlando. pp. 73-120.

Moestrup Ø. 1982. Flagellar structure in algae: a review, with new observations paricularly on the Chrysophyceae, Phaeophyceae (Fucophyceae), Euglenophyceae, and Reckertia. Phycologia. 21: 427-528.

Moreira, D., H. le Guyader, and H. Phillippe. 2000. The origin of red algae and the evolution of chloroplasts. Nature. 405: 69-72.

Nikolaev, S. I., A. P. Milnikov, C. Berney, J. Fahrni, J. Pawlowsli, V. V. Aleshin, and N. B. Petrov. 2004. Molecular phylogenetic analysis places Percolomonas cosmopolitus within Heterolobosea: evolutionary implications. Journal of Evolutionary Microbiology. 51(5): 575-581.

Patterson, D. J. 1999. The diversity of eukaryotes. American Naturalist. 154 (Suppl.): S96–S124.

Reyes-Prieto, A. and D. Bhattacharya. 2007. Phylogeny of nuclear-encoded plastid-targeted proteins supports an early divergence of glaucophytes within Plantae. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 24(11): 2358-2361.

Schnepf, E. and R. M. Brown, Jr. 1971. On relationships between endosymbiosis and the origin of plastids and mitochondria. In: J. Reinert and H. Ursprung, eds. Origin and Continuity of Cell Organelles. Springer-Verlag. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York. pp. 299-322.

Skuja, A. 1948. Taxonomie des Phytoplanktons einiger Seen in Uppland, Schweden. Symbolae Botanicae Upsalienses. 9(3): 1-399.

Van Den Hoek, C., D. G. Mann, and H. M. Jahns. 1995. Algae, An Introduction to Phycology. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

By Jack R. Holt. Last revised: 03/18/2013

SYNOPTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE PHYLUM GLAUCOPHYTA

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