Chromulina Cienkowsky, 1870
Holotype species: Chromulina nebulosa Cienkowski
Original publication and holotype designation: Cienkowski, L. (1870). Ueber Palmellaceen unde einige Flagellaten. Archiv für mikroskopische Anatomie 6: 421-438, plates 23-24.
Request PDFDescription: Cells solitary, free-swimming, variously shaped in face view and normally not compressed in transverse section (one species, C. placentula Belcher and Swale, is distinctly flattened). Front end usually obliquely truncate with an emargination from which a long hairy flagellum emerges; a second smooth flagellum is much reduced and only visible in the electron microscope. Cell surface usually naked, but in an electron microscopic study of C. placentula a covering of minute membranous scales was observed. In several species the cell surface is covered with small wart-like outgrowths which sometimes are connected by a network of delicate ridges. Cells usually free-swimming, but occasionally come to rest and attach to a substrate at the posterior end. Cells are often somewhat metabolic and may become amoeboid with loss of flagellum. Chloroplast 1-2, usually with a stigma and in some species a pyrenoid. Protoplast also contains 1-6 contractile vacuoles, 1 or several chrysolaminaran vacuoles, food vacuoles and sometimes numerous trichocyst-like bodies (mucocysts, discobolocysts) just under the cell surface. Cell division may take place while a cell is actively motile, or a cell may become immobile and invested with a gelatinous envelope prior to division. When surrounded by a gelatinous envelope, cells may divide and redivide and thus produce a palmelloid colony with a few to many cells. Species of Chromulina producing stages in which a number of flagellated cells are enclosed within a common gelatinous envelope resemble Saccochrysis spp. Many species produce stomatocysts, but sexual reproduction has not been observed. Most species occur in freshwater, but a few species are also known from brackish and marine environments. Widely distributed , sometimes common.
Information contributed by: H. R. Preisig. The most recent alteration to this page was made on 2023-03-08 by E.A. Molinari Novoa.
Taxonomic status: This name is of an entity that is currently accepted taxonomically.
Gender: This genus name is currently treated as feminine.
Most recent taxonomic treatment adopted: Kawai, H. & Nakayama, T. (2015). Introduction (Heterokontobionta p.p.), Cryptophyta, Dinophyta, Haptophyta, Heterokontophyta (except Coscinodiscophyceae, Mediophyceae, Fragilariophyceae, Bacillariophyceae, Phaeophyceae, Eustigmatophyceae), Chlorarachniophyta, Euglenophyta. In: Syllabus of plant families. Adolf Engler's Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien. Ed. 13. Phototrophic eukaryotic Algae. Glaucocystophyta, Cryptophyta, Dinophyta/Dinozoa, Haptophyta, Heterokontophyta/Ochrophyta, Chlorarachnniophyta/Cercozoa, Chlorophyta, Streptophyta p.p. (Frey, W. Eds), pp. 11-64, 103-139. Stuttgart: Borntraeger Science Publishers.
Comments: Throndsen (1997: 618) record this genus as being a member of the Family Ochromonadaceae and Order Ochromonadales.
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Contributors
Some of the descriptions included in AlgaeBase were originally from the unpublished Encyclopedia of Algal Genera,
organised in the 1990s by Dr Bruce Parker on behalf of the Phycological Society of America (PSA)
and intended to be published in CD format.
These AlgaeBase descriptions are now being continually updated, and each current contributor is identified above.
The PSA and AlgaeBase warmly acknowledge the generosity of all past and present contributors and particularly the work of Dr Parker.
Descriptions of chrysophyte genera were subsequently published in J. Kristiansen & H.R. Preisig (eds.). 2001. Encyclopedia of Chrysophyte Genera. Bibliotheca Phycologica 110: 1-260.
Linking to this page: https://www.algaebase.org/search/genus/detail/?genus_id=43774
Citing AlgaeBase
Cite this record as:
E.A. Molinari Novoa in Guiry, M.D. & Guiry, G.M. 08 March 2023. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. https://www.algaebase.org; searched on 22 November 2024
