Abstract:
Euglenaria Karnkowska, Linton & Kwiatowski is a new genus isolated from
Euglena Ehrenberg in 2010. Currently, there are 4 species reported in the world. In China’s existing algal taxonomic data, the species of
Euglenaria are still classified in
Euglena, and their morphological description is vague, making it difficult to distinguish them from some species of
Euglena. It is difficult to identify
Euglenaria and
Euglena, and there is no obvious difference between
Euglenaria and some species of
Euglena in morphology. With the development of molecular biology, new technical means have been brought for the identification of euglenoid. While further research on the systematic classification of euglenoid has been carried out, the classification status of many euglenoid species has been revised, and
Euglenaria is a new genus separated from
Euglena at this stage. Our study found that the cells of
Euglenaria are generally fusiform without mucocysts, and the Chloroplasts are disc-shaped with pyrenoids and edges irregular with deep grooves. The morphological differences among the species of
Euglenaria are mainly reflected in the shape, number of chloroplasts and size of cells. The cells morphology of
Eu. clepsydroides are hourglass shaped. The cells of
Eu. caudata length (58.95±12.38) μm, width (28.57±5.82) μm were the largest. The chloroplast number of
Eu. anabaena and
Eu. clavata was significantly different.
Eu. anabaena contained fewer chloroplasts (only 4±1), while
Eu. clavata cells contained 10±3 chloroplasts. The morphological differences among species of
Euglenaria are very subtle, and it is difficult to correctly identify them. The phylogenetic tree showed that with the closely related Eutreptiaceae as the outgroup, the results indicated that the rest of the euglenoids were divided into two major clades, the Euglenaceae clade and the Phacaceae clade. Euglenaceae (0.96/597) included
Euglenaformis,
Strombomonas,
Trachelomonas,
Cryptoglena,
Euglena,
Monomorphina,
Euglenaria and
Colacium. Each genus formed a well-supported evolutionary clade, respectively. The genus
Euglenaria is located in the branch of Euglenaceae (0.84/-), consisting 28 strains of
Euglenaria, which are divided into 3 subbranches, and the support rate of each subbranch exceed 99%. Eu1 clade contained 13 strains of
Eu. anabaena, Eu2 (1.00/998) contained 8 strains
Eu. caudata, and Eu3 (1.00/1000) contained 6 strains
Eu. clavata.
Eu. anabaena and
Eu. caudata were sister branches. However, there are great difference in cell size and chloroplast number between the two species. In morphology,
Eu. anabaena and
Eu. clavata were more similar, with similar cell size and large difference in chloroplast number. There were significant differences in cell size between
Eu. caudata and
Eu. clavata, but the number of chloroplasts was similar. This suggests that the relationship between morphology and molecular phylogeny may be inconsistent. At present, there are only 4 species of
Euglenaria and 162 species of
Euglena, and 80% species of
Euglena have no molecular data. It is unknown whether there are still
Euglena species belonging to
Euglenaria among these species without molecular data, and further research is still needed. In this study, 12 strains of
Euglenaria collected from China were used as materials to study the phylogeny of
Euglenaria based on morphological and molecular biological methods. We provide the
Euglenaria species in morphological characters and molecular data and discusse the phylogenetic position of
Euglenaria. In order to improve the taxonomic description of this group in China, we revised the taxonomic description of
Euglenaria.