title: Morphology, morphogenesis and molecular phylogeny of a new marine ciliate, Trichototaxis marina n. sp. (Ciliophora, Urostylida).
abstract: The live morphology, infraciliature and morphogenesis of a new urostylid ciliate, Trichototaxis marina n. sp., collected from coastal water in Qingdao, China, were studied based on the observations of live and silver stained specimens. The new species is characterised as follows: body very flexible and contractile, slight to brick-reddish in colour due to irregularly-shaped, brick-red pigments; ca. 70 adoral membranelles; about 17 frontal cirri arranged in a bicorona; average 67 midventral pairs, the right base of each pair being conspicuously larger than the left base; five to seven transverse cirri; constantly two frontoterminal, one buccal and two pretransverse ventral cirri; two or three left marginal rows; right and innermost left marginal rows with 56-92 and 66-106 cirri, respectively; six bipolar dorsal kineties; more than 100 macronuclear nodules. The characteristic morphogenetic feature in T. marina is the development of the left marginal rows, that is, only one left marginal row is newly built the other one or two being retained from the parental cell. Phylogenetic analyses based on small subunit ribosomal gene sequence data reveal a close relationship of T. marina with members of family Pseudokeronopsidae.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Protozoology, Institute of Evolution and Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoteng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Protozoology, Institute of Evolution and Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering, Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Protozoology, Institute of Evolution and Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China. Electronic address: xiaozhonghu@ouc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xiaozhong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Warren
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D016798:Ciliophora / Q000145:classification / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics; D009024:Morphogenesis; D010802:Phylogeny; D012337:RNA, Ribosomal, 18S / Q000235:genetics; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D012337:RNA, Ribosomal, 18S
keywords: Infraciliature; Marine ciliates; Ontogenesis; SSU rDNA; Trichototaxis marina n. sp