Nitzschia anatoliensis sp. nov., a cryptic diatom species from the highly alkaline Van Lake (Turkey)

Cüneyt Nadir Solak; Romain Gastineau; Claude Lemieux; Monique Turmel; Ewa Gorecka; Rosa Trobajo; Mateusz Rybak; Elif Yılmaz; Andrzej Witkowski

doi:10.7717/peerj.12220

Nitzschia anatoliensis sp. nov., a cryptic diatom species from the highly alkaline Van Lake (Turkey)

PeerJ. 2021 Oct 22:9:e12220. doi: 10.7717/peerj.12220. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Cüneyt Nadir Solak¹, Romain Gastineau², Claude Lemieux³, Monique Turmel³, Ewa Gorecka², Rosa Trobajo⁴, Mateusz Rybak⁵, Elif Yılmaz^{1

2}, Andrzej Witkowski²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biology, Arts and Science Faculty, Dumlupınar University, Kütahya, Turkey.
² Institute of Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland.
³ Département de biochimie, de microbiologie et de bio-informatique, Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada.
⁴ Marine and Continental Waters Program, IRTA-Institute of Agriculture and Food Research and Technology, Sant Carles de la Ràpita, Catalonia, Spain.
⁵ Department of Agroecology and Forest Utilization, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Land Management and Environmental Protection, University of Rzeszów, Rzeszów, Poland.

Abstract

In this article we describe Nitzschia anatoliensis Górecka, Gastineau & Solak sp. nov., an example of a diatom species inhabiting extreme habitats. The new species has been isolated and successfully grown from the highly alkaline Van Lake in East Turkey. The description is based on morphology (light and scanning electron microscopy), the sequencing of its organellar genomes and several molecular phylogenies. This species could easily be overlooked because of its extreme similarity to Nitzschia aurariae but molecular phylogenies indicate that they are only distantly related. Furthermore, molecular data suggest that N. anatoliensis may occur in several alkaline lakes of Asia Minor and Siberia, but was previously misidentified as Nitzschia communis. It also revealed the very close genetic proximity between N. anatoliensis and the endosymbiont of the dinotom Kryptoperidinium foliaceum, providing additional clues on what might have been the original species of diatoms to enter symbiosis.

Keywords: Alkaline lake; Cryptic diversity; Diatoms; Extreme habitats; Multigene phylogeny; New species; Organellar genomes; Van Lake.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Turkish Council of Higher Education Foundation (Grant no: MEV–2016–04), the Kütahya Dumlupınar University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit (Grant No: 2020–01), by the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme GHaNA (The Genus Haslea, New marine resources for blue biotechnology and Aquaculture) under Grant Agreement No 734708/GHANA/ H2020-MSCA-RISE-2016, and by the 2017-2021 research funds granted for implementation of a co-financed international research project from Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Rosa Trobajo was also supported by the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.