Changes in the Classification of Several Major Taxa of Ciliophora on the Basis of a Numerical Phenetic Analysis,

Abstract

SYNOPSIS. Several taxonomic problems arising from recent revisions of the phylum Ciliophora. Initially, electro‐ and light‐microscopic features of 7 species from 4 genera of colpodid ciliates were analyzed by several numerical phenetic procedures. The phenogram derived by using Jaccard's coefficient as the measure of similarity and the unweighted pair‐group arithmetic clustering method (UPGMA) yielded a classification with the highest cophenetic correlation coefficient. Subsequently, relationships among 22 oligohymenophoran and related genera were determined by analyzing 57 ultrastructural and light‐microscopic features with Jaccard's coefficient and UPGMA. On the basis of these results, the suborder Peniculina is elevated to ordinal rank and the family Turaniellidae is transferred from the Peniculida to the Tetrahymenina. The phenogram also indicated that the nassuline ciliates may be allied with the OLIGOHYMENOPHORA rather than the KINETOFRAGMINOPHORA. Copyright © 1979, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved