Phylogenetic and Taxonomic Revision of an Enigmatic Group of Haptorian Ciliates, with Establishment of the Kentrophyllidae fam. n. (Protozoa, Ciliophora, Litostomatea, Pleurostomatida).

ABSTRACT: Haptorian ciliates in the closely similar genera Kentrophyllum and Epiphyllum possess a unique pattern of ciliature and are distinguished from one another only by the presence or absence of cytoplasmic spines projecting from the margin of the cell. Phylogenetic analyses based on SSU rDNA sequences of three new samples from coastal habitats in China revealed that species in the two genera clustered together indiscriminately (i.e. forms of neither genus clustered into an independent clade) as a maximally supported, monophyletic clade that branches basally to all other clades in the order Pleurostomatida and is strongly divergent from other members of the family in which the genera have been placed. As a result, we propose that Epiphyllum be synonymized with Kentrophyllum and that a new famil

SUBMITTER: Wu L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4422516 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature