Multigene phylogeny and morphology of newly isolated strain of Pseudo-nitzschia mannii Amato & Montresor (Adriatic Sea)

Abstract

An increasing number of cryptic and pseudo-cryptic species have been found within many newly described diatom species. To resolve the phylogenetic relationships of the genus Pseudo-nitzschia, molecular markers are being widely used in combination (or separately) with different morphological characters. Sequence analysis of ribosomal DNA markers (18S, ITS and 28S) and morphological analyses of Pseudo-nitzschia mannii strain (CIM_D-4), isolated from the Telašćica Bay (Adriatic Sea), differentiate it from all other currently reported strains of this species.

Keywords:

• molecular markers
• morphology
• phylogeny
• phytoplankton
• Pseudo-nitzschia

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their thanks to Katrina O'Loughlin for critical reading of the manuscript and language corrections. Special gratitude goes to two anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped improve this manuscript. The authors would like to thank the Nature park ‘Telašćica’ office for their financial support of the research, and assistance with sampling. The study was supported in part by the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports (project no. 119-1191189-1228) and by the Croatian Science Foundation (project no. UIP-11-2013-6433).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0269249X.2017.1284158.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Hrvatska Zaklada za Znanost [grant number UIP-11-2013-6433];Ministarstvo Znanosti, Obrazovanja i Sporta [grant number 119-1191189-1228].