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Updated: Aug 6, 2026

Sexual Crosses with the Mucoromycete Phycomyces blakesleeanus
Published on: June 6, 2025
Multiple cosmopolitan ecotypes within a microbial eukaryote morphospecies
Bland J Finlay1, Genoveva F Esteban, Susan Brown
1Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Winfrith Technology Centre, Winfrith Newburgh, Dorchester, Dorset DT2 8ZD, UK. bjf@ceh.ac.uk
Abstract:
Microbial eukaryotes that are morphologically indistinguishable (i.e. 'morphospecies') tend to be genetically diverse. While most protist morphospecies have cosmopolitan distribution, it has been suggested that ribotypes (unique rRNA gene sequences) or rRNA sequence clusters do have biogeography and such clusters may correlate with particular (non-morphological) adaptations. We have studied this in the ciliated protozoan morphospecies Cyclidium glaucoma. Fifty-four isolates collected worldwide represented 31 distinct ribotypes. There was no evidence of biogeographic distribution patterns. For example, identical ribotypes occurred in samples from Argentina, Peru, Morocco, Russia and Ukraine; in samples from Denmark and Australia; and in samples from Great Salt Lake and hyperhaline ponds in Spain. The morphospecies Cyclidium glaucoma is euryhaline and occurs in freshwater, brackish water, seawater, and hyperhaline waters. Evidence suggests that one ribotype cluster occurs only in marine or brackish habitats, and another one has so far been found only in hyperhaline habitats. Two clades seem to occur only in freshwater, but one clade includes ribotypes that were found in freshwater as well as in brackish water.
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