PEET: Integrating Classical with Phylogenetic Taxonomic Treatments in Five Genera of Coccoid Green Algae (Chlorophyta)

形态简单、单细胞的球藻（绿藻）是一种重要的、多样化的光合真核生物。作为初级生产者，它们大量出现在水生海洋、淡水和微咸生境中。球藻绿藻也可以在陆地栖息地中找到，并且从地球上一些最干燥的地方采集。此外，球藻绿藻与海葵、水螅、有孔虫、帽贝等多细胞动物、单细胞原生生物、真菌等共生，形成地衣。球藻是一种重要的模式生物。它们与陆地胚胎植物的密切进化关系使它们成为细胞和分子生物学和遗传学研究中大型多细胞绿色植物的理想替代品。尽管球藻具有重要的生态学和生物学意义，但目前对其的研究很少，目前的分类系统不能反映其丰富的生物多样性和进化史。一个由三名科学家组成的团队，每位科学家都是球藻系统学方面的专家，他们将培养学生对球藻绿藻的五个常见属进行系统的专题研究。小球藻属（Chlorella）、小苞球藻属（Bracteacoccus）、四叶虫属（Tetracystis）、氯藻属（Chlorosarcinopsis）和氯球藻属（Chlorococcum）将被作为形态学和DNA测序分析的目标。这两种形式的数据将收集所有现有的公共培养收集中每个属的分离株，以及生物地壳项目收集的沙漠藻类。这些数据将用于在五个属内建立明确的系统发育物种边界，从而导致正式的分类修订。这项工作将培养两名博士生从事球藻现代系统处理的所有活动，从分离和培养，到光学和扫描电子显微镜，再到DNA测序，出版和数据库制作。这项工作将产生大约5000个核苷酸的新序列数据，来自4-5个不同的基因，从300多个绿藻分离物中收集。这些藻类的专题报告将发表在生理学期刊上，并纳入一个可访问的网络关系数据库，该数据库将把物种描述与图像、地理信息和相关出版物联系起来，从而使最广泛的受众可以随时获取这些信息。此外，本工作将为其他球藻的属级分类工作提供一个模型，扩大我们对绿藻生物多样性的认识，并通过为大量没有系统发育信息的培养收集分离物建立明确的属和种边界来服务于生理群落。随着新的重点放在识别“非模式”生物的生理和基因组研究，澄清这些藻类的分类也将有助于其他生物学家针对这些活动的特定物种的能力，从而服务于更广泛的生物群落。

"Integrating classical with phylogenetic taxonomic treatments in five genera of coccoid green algae (Chlorophyta)" The morphologically simple, unicellular, coccoid green algae (Chlorophyta) are an important and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotes. As primary producers, they occur abundantly in aquatic marine, freshwater, and brackish habitats. Coccoid green algae also can be found commonly in terrestrial habitats, and have been collected from some of the driest places on earth. In addition, coccoid green algae participate in symbioses with multicellular animals such as anemones, hydras, foraminifera, limpets, with unicellular protists, and with fungi, to form lichens. Coccoid green algae are important model organisms. Their close evolutionary relationship to embryophyte land plants makes them an ideal proxy for larger multicellular green plants in studies of cellular and molecular biology and genetics. Despite their ecological and biological importance, the coccoid green algae are very poorly studied, and our current taxonomic system for them is not reflective of their great biological diversity and evolutionary history. A team of three scientists, each an expert in the systematics of coccoid algae, will train students in systematic monographic research on five common genera of coccoid green algae. The genera, Chlorella,Bracteacoccus,Tetracystis, Chlorosarcinopsis, and Chlorococcum, will be targeted for a combination of morphological and DNA sequencing analyses. Both forms of data will be collected for all available culture collection isolates of each genus now held in public culture collections, and the Biotic Crust Project collection of desert algae. These data will be used to establish explicit phylogenetic species boundaries within the five genera, leading to formal taxonomic revisions. This work will train two Ph.D. students in all activities leading to a modern systematic treatment of coccoid green algae, from isolation and culturing, to light and scanning electron microscopy, to DNA sequencing, publication, and database production. The work will result in approximately 5000 nucleotides of new sequence data, from 4-5 different genes, collected from over 300 isolates of green algae. Monographic accounts of these algae will be published in phycological journals and incorporated into a web-accessible relational database that will connect species descriptions with images, geographic information, and related publications, thereby making the information readily accessible to the broadest of audiences. In addition, this work will provide a model for genus-level taxonomic work on other coccoid algae, expand our knowledge of the biodiversity of green algae, and serve the phycological community by establishing explicit generic and species boundaries for the numerous culture collection isolates for which no phylogenetic information exists. With a new emphasis on identifying "non-model" organisms for physiological and genomic studies, clarification of the taxonomy of these algae will also assist in the ability of other biologists to target specific species for these activities, thereby serving the broader biological community.