Affiliation:
1. Department of Zoology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
Abstract
Abstract
Myxophyllum steenstrupi is a symbiotic ciliate living in the body slime and mantle cavity of terrestrial pulmonates (Gastropoda: Pulmonata). In the present study, M. steenstrupi was re-discovered after almost 30 years and characterized using an integrative morpho-molecular approach for the first time. Myxophyllum is distinguished by a broadly ovate, about 140 × 115 μm-sized body, a nuclear apparatus typically composed of seven macronuclear nodules and a single micronucleus, a central contractile vacuole, a shallow oral cavity situated in the posterior body region and dense somatic ciliature with extensive thigmotactic field. According to the present phylogenetic analyses of two mitochondrial and five nuclear markers, M. steenstrupi is classified in the predominantly free-living order Pleuronematida (Oligohymenophorea: Scuticociliatia). This order also encompasses other taxa isolated from molluscs and traditionally classified along with Myxophyllum in the order Thigmotrichida. The proper classifications of Myxophyllum was hampered by the dramatic remodelling of its oral apparatus (reduction of the paroral membrane and adoral organelles, formation of vestibular kineties), a transformation that was likely induced by its firm association with terrestrial gastropods. The present study also documents that various ciliate lineages independently became commensals or parasites of various aquatic and terrestrial molluscs.
Funder
Slovak Research and Development Agency
Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport
Slovak Republic and Slovak Academy of Sciences
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Animal Science and Zoology,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Reference80 articles.
1. Techniques and tools for species identification in ciliates: a review;Abraham;International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology,2019
2. Catalogue of the generic names of ciliates (Protozoa, Ciliophora);Aescht;Denisia,2001
3. New functionality of RNAComposer: an application to shape the axis of miR160 precursor structure;Antczak;Acta Biochimica Polonica,2016
4. A redescription of Conchophthirus curtus Engelmann, 1862 (Protozoa, Ciliatea);Antipa;Journal of Protozoology,1971
5. Molecular phylogeny, taxonomic relationships and North American distribution of Conchophthirus (Conchophthiridae, Scuticociliatia);Antipa;Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management,2020