A New Cryptic Species of the Genus Mychonastes (Chlorophyceae, Sphaeropleales)

Nikita Martynenko; Evgeniy Gusev; Dmitry Kapustin; Maxim Kulikovskiy

doi:10.3390/plants11233363

A New Cryptic Species of the Genus Mychonastes (Chlorophyceae, Sphaeropleales)

Plants (Basel). 2022 Dec 3;11(23):3363. doi: 10.3390/plants11233363.

Authors

Nikita Martynenko¹, Evgeniy Gusev¹, Dmitry Kapustin², Maxim Kulikovskiy²

Affiliations

¹ A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, 119071 Moscow, Russia.
² K.A. Timiryazev Institute of Plant Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Botanical Street 35, 127276 Moscow, Russia.

Abstract

A new species of green coccoid algae, Mychonastes hindakii sp. nov., was isolated from the River Moscow (Russia, Moscow). The taxon is described using morphological and molecular methods. Mychonastes hindakii sp. nov. belongs to the group of species of the genus Mychonastes with spherical single cells joined with mucilaginous, irregularly shaped stalks. A comparison of ITS2 rDNA sequences and its secondary structures combined with the compensatory base changes approach confirms the separation between Mychonastes hindakii and other species of the genus. Mychonastes hindakii sp. nov. represents a cryptic species that can only be reliably identified using molecular data.

Keywords: CBC approach; ITS2 rDNA secondary structure; Moscow; Mychonastes; SSU rDNA; new species.

Abstract

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