Morphological and molecular identification of the dioecious "African species Volvox rousseletii (Chlorophyceae) in the water column of a Japanese lake based on field-collected and cultured materials

PLoS One. 2019 Aug 29;14(8):e0221632. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0221632. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Volvox rousseletii is a dioecious species belonging to Volvox sect. Volvox that has previously only been found in Africa. During field surveys in a large dam lake (Lake Sagami) in Kanagawa Prefecture, central Japan, we encountered a Volvox sect. Volvox species that produces dioecious sexual spheroids in the water column. Although sexual induction of this species in culture did not produce adequately well-developed sexual spheroids for species identification, molecular data directly obtained from field-collected sexual spheroids verified the identity of field-collected male and female sexual spheroids as well as cultured materials. Based on molecular and morphological data, the species was identified as V. rousseletii. This is the first record of a dioecious species of Volvox sect. Volvox in Japan.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • DNA, Intergenic
  • Genes, rRNA
  • Japan
  • Lakes*
  • Phylogeny
  • Volvox / classification
  • Volvox / cytology*
  • Volvox / genetics*

Substances

  • DNA, Intergenic

Grants and funding

HN was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (grant number 16H02518) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)/Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI (https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-grants/). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.