Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins are potent neurotoxins mainly produced by dinoflagellates and being concentrated in bivalves through food web transfer. Increasing number of findings of toxin-producing bacteria in the cells of dinoflagellate such as Alexandrium tamarense supports the hypothesis of the bacterial origin of PSP toxins. Evidence that there are specific symbiosis bacterial...

Dinoflagellates are prolific producers of polyketide compounds, many of which are potent toxins with adverse impacts on human and marine animal health. To identify polyketide synthase (PKS) genes in the brevetoxin-producing dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis, we assembled a transcriptome from 595 million Illumina reads, sampled under different growth conditions. The assembly included 125,687 transc...

Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins are potent neurotoxins mainly produced by dinoflagellates and being concentrated in bivalves through food web transfer. Increasing number of findings of toxin-producing bacteria in the cells of dinoflagellate such as Alexandriumtamarense supports the hypothesis of the bacterial origin of PSP toxins. Evidence that there are specific symbiosis bacterial ...

Phytoplankton taxa composition of the Caspian Sea were evaluated by using samples collected at 12 stations along the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea between 1996 and 2010. This study identified 158 phytoplankton species consisted of diatoms (70 species), dinoflagellates (23 species), chlorophytes (29 species), cyanophytes (31 species), and euglenoids (5 species). The dominant species were the...

In August 1985 and 1986, a senes of bathyphotometric measurements were made In icefree waters of Vestfjord, Norway, to quantify stimulable in situ bioluminescence. In 1986, we tested and identified the causative bioluminescent plankton. In all profiles, peak or maximum bioluminescence intensity was always within a zone of 15 to 30m below sea surface, with marked decreases below 50m. Maximum bio...

Despite their evolutionary and ecological importance, dinoflagellate phylogeny remains poorly resolved. Here we explored the utility of mitochondrial cytochrome b (cob) in inferring a dinoflagellate tree and focused on resolving the relationship between fucoxanthin-and peridinin-containing taxa. Trees were inferred using cob and small subunit rDNA alone or in combination as concatenated data an...

The effects of seagrass on microalgal assemblages under experimentally elevated temperatures (28°C) and CO 2 partial pressures (pCO ; 800 μatm) were examined using coral reef mesocosms. Concentrations nitrate, ammonium, benthic chlorophyll a (chl-a) significantly higher in mesocosms, whereas phytoplankton chl-a concentrations similar between seagrass-free control In the group, fewer parasitic d...

The genus Perkinsus occupies a precarious phylogenetic position. To gain a better understanding of the relationship between perkinsids, dinoflagellates and other alveolates, we analyzed the nuclear-encoded spliced-leader (SL) RNA and mitochondrial genes, intron prevalence, and multi-protein phylogenies. In contrast to the canonical 22-nt SL found in dinoflagellates (DinoSL), P. marinus has a sh...

To explore the distribution of Pfiesteria piscicida in Korean coastal waters, we analyzed the morphology and DNA sequence of several isolates collected from 6 locations along the southern and western Korean coasts. We also investigated the prey species consumed by a Korean isolate and determined the growth and ingestion rates of P. piscicida when it fed on the dinoflagellate Amphidinium cartera...

BACKGROUND DNA barcoding offers an efficient way to determine species identification and to measure biodiversity. For dinoflagellates, an ancient alveolate group of about 2000 described extant species, DNA barcoding studies have revealed large amounts of unrecognized species diversity, most of which is not represented in culture collections. To date, two mitochondrial gene markers, Cytochrome O...