Cladistic analyses of combined traditional and molecular data sets reveal an algal lineage

The chromophyte algae are a large and biologically diverse assemblage of brown seaweeds, diatoms, and other golden algae classified in 13 taxonomic classes. One subgroup (diatoms, pedinellids, pelagophytes, silicoflagellates, and certain enigmatic genera) is characterized by a highly reduced flagellar apparatus. The flagellar apparatus lacks microtubular and fibrous roots, and the flagellum basal body is attached directly to the nucleus. We hypothesize that the flagellar reduction is the result of a single evolutionary series of events. Cladistic analysis of ultrastructural and biochemical data reveals a monophyletic group that unites all taxa with a reduced flagellar apparatus, supporting our hypothesis. Phylogenetic analyses of 18S rRNA gene sequence data provide strong resolution within most of the major groups of chromophytes but only weakly resolve relationships among those groups. Some of the molecularly based most parsimonious trees, however, also unite the taxa with a reduced flagellar apparatus, although the diatoms are not included in this lineage. This grouping is further supported by a posteriori character weighting of the molecular data, suggesting that flagellar reduction occurred at least twice in parallel evolutionary series of events. To further test our hypothesis of a single evolutionary reduction in the flagellar apparatus, we combine the two data sets and subject the hybrid data matrix to parsimony analysis. The resulting trees unite the diatoms with the other reduced flagellar apparatus algae in a monophyletic group. This result supports our hypothesis of a single evolutionary reduction and indicates the existence of a previously unrecognized lineage of algae characterized by a highly reduced flagellar apparatus. Further, this study suggests that the traditional classification of the diatoms with the chrysophytes and xanthophytes in the division (= phylum) Chrysophyta, as presented in most textbooks, is unsatisfactory and that a significantly different classification should be employed.