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Mesodinium rubrum in the Baja California Upwelling System

  • Conference paper
Upwelling Ecosystems

Abstract

Mesodinium riorum (Lohmann) Hamburger and Buddenbrook is a holotrichous ciliate, occasionally responsible for nontoxic red waters in every major ocean except the Indian, unlike most other ciliates, M. rubrum and some members of the genera Prorodon and Strombidiun (Blackbourn et al., 1973) contain chloroplasts. Prorodon and Strombidium contain chloroplasts, only, and occasionally have been found without them. M. rubrum, however, also contains mitochondria in addition to the chloroplasts; furthermore, the organism has never been observed without the chloroplasts (Taylor et al., 1971). These chloroplasts were thought to be associated with quasi-independent cryptomonads (Parsons and Blackbourn, 1968; Barber et al., 1969), but the absence of nonciliate nuclei and the thylakoid characteristics of the chloroplasts indicate that the chloroplasts are not associated with endosymbiotic algae, but are functioning as ciliate organelles. How they became associated with the ciliate is unclear. The vestigial condition of M. rubrum’s cytostome suggests that new algae cannot possibly be ingested in each ciliate generation, although they might be ingested at less frequent intervals during some unknown stage of M. rubrum’s life cycle (Taylor et al., 1969, 1971).

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Authors
  1. T. T. Packard
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  2. D. Blasco
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  3. R. T. Barber
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Meereskunde an der Universität, Düsternbrooker Weg 20, 2300, Kiel, Germany

    Rolf Boje

  2. Department of Oceanography, The University of Liverpool, Bedford Street North, P. O. Box 147, L69 3BX, Liverpool, GB

    Matthias Tomczak

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© 1978 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Packard, T.T., Blasco, D., Barber, R.T. (1978). Mesodinium rubrum in the Baja California Upwelling System. In: Boje, R., Tomczak, M. (eds) Upwelling Ecosystems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-66985-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-66985-9_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-08822-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-66985-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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