An important missing piece in the puzzle of how plastids spread across the eukaryotic tree of life is a robust evolutionary framework for the host lineages. Four assemblages are known to harbour plastids derived from red algae and, according to the controversial chromalveolate hypothesis, these all share a common ancestry. Phylogenomic analyses have consistently shown that stramenopiles and alv...

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The morphological analysis of seeds has been an important subject in modern ecological studies, once it provides evidence about the biology and adaptations of the parent plant. However, this kind of study has been restricted to the ecology of modern plants and is rarely used in interpretations of Paleozoic data. From the understanding of dispersal syndromes analysis as an important tool to pale...

In order to contribute to an understanding of the geographic distribution of free-living freshwater flagellates, we have investigated the diversity of heterotrophic flagellates occurring in a number of freshwater sites in Tasmania (Australia). This community of organisms has not previously been studied in Tasmania, and the isolation of the freshwater habitats from like habitats elsewhere in the...

Cryptomonads have acquired photosynthesis through secondary endosymbiosis: they have engulfed and retained a photosynthetic eukaryote. The remnants of this autotrophic symbiont are severely reduced, but a small volume of cytoplasm surrounding the plastid persists, along with a residual nucleus (the nucleomorph) that encodes only a few hundred genes. We characterized tubulin genes from the crypt...

The fossil record holds a wealth of ecological data, including data on biotic interactions. For example, holes in the skeletons of invertebrates produced by drilling activities of their enemies are widely used for exploring the intensity of such interactions through time because they are common and easily distinguished from non-biotic holes or holes produced by other types of interactions. Such...

Neurons from the butter clam Saxidomus giganteus and its congener the Washington clam S. nuttalli were shown to be 10 to 100 times more resistant to the dinoflagellate toxin saxitoxin (STX) than those from 4 CO-occurring infaunal bivalves, Mya arenaria, M, truncata, Tresus capax and Protothaca staminea. Only neurons from the venerid clam Humilan'a kennerlyi proved more resistant than those of S...