Ocean warming can modify the phytoplankton biomass on decadal scales. Significant increases in sea surface temperature (SST) and rainfall in the northwest of Australia over recent decades are attributed to climate change. Here, we used four biomarker proxies (TEX86 index, long-chain n-alkanes, brassicasterol, and dinosterol) to reconstruct approximately 60-year variations of SST, terrestrial in...

Bioluminescence represents an operational threat to naval nighttime operations because the flow field associated with their motion stimulates naturally occurring plankton. In the littoral, the primary sources of bioluminescence are dinoflagellates, common unicellular plankton that are also known to form red tides. Dinoflagellate bioluminescence is stimulated by flow stress of sufficient magnitu...

Dinoflagellates nuclei allow for liquid crystalline characterization without core histones. In this study, nuclei were isolated from the athecate Karenia dinoflagellate species with minimum destruction to their native structure during preparation procedures. The liquid crystalline nuclei were studied by microscopy techniques of Metripol birefringence microscopy, Confocal Laser Scanning Microsco...

Anemones of genus Exaiptasia are used as model organisms for the study of cnidarian-dinoflagellate (genus Symbiodinium) endosymbiosis. However, while most reef-building corals harbor Symbiodinium of clade C, Exaiptasia spp. anemones mainly harbor clade B Symbiodinium (ITS2 type B1) populations. In this study, we reveal for the first time that bleached Exaiptasia pallida anemones can establish a...

Dinoflagellate blooms in Monterey Bay, California (USA) have recently increased in frequency and intensity. Six years of satellite imagery from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) is used to describe the annual and seasonal variability of bloom activity within the Bay. Three classes of MODIS algorithms were correlated against in situ chlorophyll measurements. The FLH algorithm ...

The ocelloid is an extraordinary eyespot organelle found only in the dinoflagellate family Warnowiaceae. It contains retina- and lens-like structures called the retinal body and the hyalosome. The ocelloid has been an evolutionary enigma because of its remarkable resemblance to the multicellular camera-type eye. To determine if the ocelloid is functionally photoreceptive, we investigated the wa...

Phytoplankton cells and resting cysts of the species Scrippsiella trochoidea are regular and dominant components of the dinoflagellate flora of coastal marine waters and sediments around the world. This species is a common harmful bloom forming species in coastal waters. In this study, for the first time cyst of S. trochoidea were isolated from the sediments of southeast coast of Iran. Five str...