|
This is an electronic version of an article published in Journal of Phycology ©2005, The Phycological Society of America. This is an electronic version of an article published in Journal of Phycology ©2006, The Phycological Society of America. This is an electronic version of an article published in Journal of Phycology ©2007, The Phycological Society of America. |
|
|
| Home
> Major Projects >
Algal Molecular Evolution
|
|
SECONDARY SYMBIOTIC
ORIGIN OF ALGAL PLASTIDS |
![]() |
| PI: | Debashish Bhattacharya | |
| Co-PIs: | Kirsten Müller | |
| Robert Sheath |
|
PROJECT SUMMARY:
|
Results
of preliminary phylogenetic analyses of nuclear and plastid DNA coding
regions show that one of the major orders of the Bangiophycidae, the
Porphyridiales, is split into at least three different lineages and
that the Florideophycidae is monophyletic with weak support for an
origin from the Bangiales (Fig. A). We have determined that the plastids
of the Heterokonta are likely derived from members of the Cyanidiales
and are not directly related to the plastids in the Cryptophyta and
the Haptophyta. |
| These
results lead us to make five major hypotheses about secondary symbiosis
and the evolutionary history of the Bangiophycidae that will be tested in the proposed research:
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
| Our multi-gene
approach will resolve the ancestry of the secondary plastids in the Cryptophyta, Haptophyta, and Heterokonta and will result in a natural classification of the Rhodophyta. These results will be of fundamental importance to understanding the process of organelle genesis and the radiation of one of the most ancient photosynthetic groups on our planet. |
|
|