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Pigment compositions are linked to the habitat types in dinoflagellates

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Abstract

Compared to planktonic species, there is little known about the ecology, physiology, and existence of benthic dinoflagellates living in sandy beach or seafloor environments. In a previous study, we discovered 132,173-cyclopheophorbide a enol (cPPB-aE) from sand-dwelling benthic dinoflagellates. This enol had never been detected in phytoplankton despite the fact that it is a chlorophyll a catabolite. We speculated from this discovery that habitat selection might be linked to pigment compositions in dinoflagellates. To test the hypothesis of habitat selection linking to pigment compositions, we conducted extensive analysis of pigments with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for 40 species using 45 strains of dinoflagellates including three habitat types; sand-dwelling benthic forms, tidal pool inhabitants and planktonic species. The 40 dinoflagellates are also able to be distinguished into two types based on their chloroplast origins; red alga-derived secondary chloroplasts and diatom-derived tertiary ones. By plotting the pigments profiles onto three habitats, we noticed that twelve pigments including cPPB-aE were found to occur only in benthic sand-dwelling species of red alga-derived type. The similar tendency was also observed in dinoflagellates with diatom-derived chloroplasts, i.e. additional sixteen pigments including chl c 3 were found only in sand-dwelling forms. This is the first report of the occurrence of chl c 3 in dinoflagellates with diatom-derived chloroplasts. These results clarify that far greater diversity of pigments are produced by the dinoflagellates living in sand regardless of chloroplast types relative to those of planktonic and tidal pool forms. Dinoflagellates seem to produce a part of their pigments in response to their habitats.

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Abbreviations

cPPB-aE:

132,173-Cyclopheophorbide a enol

PCDi:

Pigments common to all dinotoms

PCPe:

Pigments common to all peridinin-type dinoflagellates

UC:

Unknown carotenoid

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge Ms. Junko Kishimoto for technical assistance with the HPLC analyses. We also appreciate to Ms. Saeka Takabayashi for cluster analyses of detected pigments. Our thanks go to Dr. Stuart D. Sym for reading the manuscript and collecting No. 39 and 40 of Durinskia sp. We also thank to Dr. Ryuta Terada and Captain M. Uchiyama and the crew of T/S Nansei-maru, Faculty of Fisheries, Kagoshima University, for their kind help in collecting the underwater samples. This work was partly supported by the Grant-in-Aid by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (No. 24370034). Eleven of the strains used in this study were collected during the field trips for the project entitled ‘Biodiversity and evolution of algae in the Indo-Pacific: a Japan/South Africa comparison’ (Strategic International Research Cooperative Program) supported by Japan Science and Technology Agency. This research was also supported by JSPS Research Fellowships for young scientists (No. 322).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural History Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan

    Norico Yamada & Takeo Horiguchi

  2. JST/CREST, Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0819, Japan

    Ayumi Tanaka

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan

    Takeo Horiguchi

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  1. Norico Yamada
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  2. Ayumi Tanaka
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  3. Takeo Horiguchi
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Correspondence to Takeo Horiguchi.

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Yamada, N., Tanaka, A. & Horiguchi, T. Pigment compositions are linked to the habitat types in dinoflagellates. J Plant Res 128, 923–932 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-015-0745-4

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