An important missing piece in the puzzle of how plastids spread across the eukaryotic tree of life is a robust evolutionary framework for the host lineages. Four assemblages are known to harbour plastids derived from red algae and, according to the controversial chromalveolate hypothesis, these all share a common ancestry. Phylogenomic analyses have consistently shown that stramenopiles and alv...

Fig. 1. Mean (6SEM [standard error of the mean]) stop-and-turn rates of glycine-grown cells in response to artificial seawater (ASW), ammonium (NH4), nitrate (NO3), and amino acids. Abbreviations for amino acids are standard three-letter codes. The Y-axis units are Hertz (Hz), the number of stops and turns per second. A minimum of 40 paths was analyzed for ASW and each chemical; compounds were ...

Chloroplasts contain proteins that are encoded by different genetic systems, the plastid genome and the nuclear chromosomes. By comparing the gene content of plastid genomes of different taxa, some predictions about nuclear-encoded genes for plastid proteins are possible. However, early in evolution, many genes were transferred from the plastid to the cell nucleus and are therefore missing from...

Anion channelrhodopsins (ACRs) are a class of light-gated channels recently identified in cryptophyte algae that provide unprecedented fast and powerful hyperpolarizing tools for optogenetics. Analysis of photocurrents generated by Guillardia theta ACR 1 (GtACR1) and its mutants in response to laser flashes showed that GtACR1 gating comprises two separate mechanisms with opposite dependencies o...

Eukaryotes bearing red alga-derived plastids--photosynthetic alveolates (dinoflagellates plus the apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii plus the chromerid Chromera velia), photosynthetic stramenopiles, haptophytes, and cryptophytes--possess unique plastid-targeted glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenases (henceforth designated as "GapC1"). Pioneering phylogenetic studies have indicated a single origi...

The appearance of photosynthetic eukaryotes (algae and plants) dramatically altered the Earth's ecosystem, making possible all vertebrate life on land, including humans. Dating algal origin is, however, frustrated by a meager fossil record. We generated a plastid multi-gene phylogeny with Bayesian inference and then used maximum likelihood molecular clock methods to estimate algal divergence ti...

Bu çalışma 2008-2009 yılları arasında Kızılcasu Orman Planlama Birimi’nin florasını tespit etmek amacı ile yapılmıştır. Çalışma alanı Kastamonu ili A4 karesinde ve Avrupa-Sibirya floristik bölgesi içerisinde yer almaktadır. sonucunda 64 familyaya ait 233 vasküler bitki taksonu edilmiştir. Tespit edilen taksonlarından 3’ü Pteridophyta bölümüne, 230’u ise Magnoliophyta bölümüne aittir. 5 (%2,1)’i...

Viruses may be major structuring elements of phytoplankton communities and hence important regulators of nutrient and energy fluxes in aquatic environments. In order to ascertain whether viruses are potentially important in dictating phytoplankton community structure, it is essential to determine the extent to which representative phytoplankton taxa are susceptible to viral infection. We used a...

The Glaucocystophyta (e.g., Cyanophora paradoxa) form a morphologically distinct group of photosynthetic protists that is primarily distinguished by its cyanelles (= plastids). To elucidate their evolutionary relationships, we determined nuclear-encoded small-subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA) coding regions for four taxa classified in the Glaucocystophyta (C. paradoxa, Glaucocystis nostochinearu...