A review of recent freshwater dinoflagellate cysts: taxonomy, phylogeny, ecology and palaeocology

Abstract

Mertens K.N., Rengefors K., Moestrup Ø. and Ellegaard M. 2012. A review of recent freshwater dinoflagellate cysts: taxonomy, phylogeny, ecology and palaeocology. Phycologia 51: 612–619. DOI: 10.2216/11-89.1

Resting stages (e.g. cysts) play an important role in the life history and ecology of phytoplankton, e.g. the survival, reproduction, genetic recombination, and dispersal of many species. Marine dinoflagellates cysts have been intensively studied by both geologists and biologists, but freshwater cysts have received less attention. There are approximately 350 freshwater dinoflagellate species, and resting cysts have been described for 84 species. We evaluated the descriptions, and we reproduced images for each cyst type. The review highlighted the importance of cyst characters for taxonomy and phylogeny. We suggested that shape, wall ornamentation and possibly the archeopyle and color were important morphological characteristics at the generic level and above. The ecology of freshwater dinoflagellate cysts was reviewed, and the ecological role of cysts was discussed. The potential of freshwater cysts for Quaternary palaeoecological reconstructions was highlighted, revealing that these could serve as useful indicators of temperature, pH and productivity.

Key Words::

• Biecheleria
• Ceratium
• Gymnodinium
• Parvodinium
• Peridinium
• Tovellia
• Woloszynskia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Graham Williams, Rob Fensome and Peta Mudie (Geological Survey of Canada Atlantic, Canada), Malte Elbrächter (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany), Anne de Vernal (Université du Québec à Montréal), Rien De Raedt (Ghent University Library), Vera Pospelova and Andrea Price (University of Victoria, Canada), António Calado (Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal), André Rochon (ISMER, Canada) and Kazumi Matsuoka (Institute for East China Sea Research, Japan) helped find obscure literature. We also thank Alla Alster, Andres Boltovskoy, António Calado, Guoqiang Chu, Sandra Craveiro, Niels Daugbjerg, Maura D'andrea, Giovanna Flaim, Graziano Di Giuseppe, John Dodge, Gert Hansen, Guo-Xiang Liu, Nina Lundholm, Barbara Meyer, Ho-Dong Park, Yoshiko Sako, Francesca Sangiorgi, Howard Spero, Massimiliano Tardio, Maria Temponeras, David Wall and Gary Wedemayer for permission to reproduce their images and drawings. Leen Degezelle is thanked for help with graphical design. Martin J. Head (Brock University) and two anonymous reviewers are thanked for suggestions and comments that significantly improved the manuscript. Kenneth Neil Mertens was supported by a post-doctoral fellowship from the Research Foundation Flandres (FWO), Belgium.

Supplementary Data

Supplementary data associated with this article (text and Figs S1-S230) can be found online at http://dx.doi.org/10.2216/11-89.1.s1.