Rosetta gen. nov. (Chlorophyta): Resolving the identity of red snow algal rosettes

3Citations
Citations of this article
8Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

Thick-walled rosette-like snow algae were long thought to be a life stage of various other species of snow algae. Rosette-like cells have not been cultured, but by manually isolating cells from 38 field samples in southern British Columbia, we assigned a variety of rosette morphologies to DNA sequence. Phylogenetic analysis of Rubisco large-subunit (rbcL) gene, ribosomal internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) rRNA region, and 18S rRNA gene revealed that the rosette-like cells form a new clade within the phylogroup Chloromonadinia. Based on these data, we designate a new genus, Rosetta, which comprises five novel species: R. castellata, R. floranivea, R. stellaria, R. rubriterra, and R. papavera. In a survey of 762 snow samples from British Columbia, we observed R. floranivea exclusively on snow overlying high-elevation glaciers, whereas R. castellata was observed at lower elevations, near the tree line. The other three species were rarely observed. Spherical red cells enveloped in a thin translucent sac were conspecific with Rosetta, possibly a developmental stage. These results highlight the unexplored diversity among snow algae and emphasize the utility of single-cell isolation to advance the centuries-old problem of disentangling life stages and cryptic species.

References Powered by Scopus

IQ-TREE: A fast and effective stochastic algorithm for estimating maximum-likelihood phylogenies

16935Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

ggtree: an r package for visualization and annotation of phylogenetic trees with their covariates and other associated data

2893Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

phangorn: Phylogenetic analysis in R

2457Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Cited by Powered by Scopus

Snow alga Sanguina aurantia as revealed through de novo genome assembly and annotation

1Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

From rubies to rosettes

0Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

An experimental assessment of active and passive dispersal of red snow algae on the Harding Icefield, southcentral Alaska

0Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Engstrom, C. B., Raymond, B. B., Albeitshawish, J., Bogdanovic, A., & Quarmby, L. M. (2024). Rosetta gen. nov. (Chlorophyta): Resolving the identity of red snow algal rosettes. Journal of Phycology, 60(2), 275–298. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpy.13438

Readers' Seniority

Tooltip

PhD / Post grad / Masters / Doc 1

100%

Readers' Discipline

Tooltip

Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Bi... 1

100%

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free