Pelagomonas
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''Pelagomonas'' is a genus of
heterokont Heterokonts are a group of protists (formally referred to as Heterokonta, Heterokontae or Heterokontophyta). The group is a major line of eukaryotes. Most are algae, ranging from the giant multicellular kelp to the unicellular diatoms, which a ...
algae. It is a monotypic genus and includes a single species, ''Pelagomonas calceolata'' which is a unicellular flagellate organism, an ubiquitous constituent of marine
picoplankton Picoplankton is the fraction of plankton composed by cells between 0.2 and 2 μm that can be either prokaryotic and eukaryotic phototrophs and heterotrophs: * photosynthetic * heterotrophic They are prevalent amongst microbial plankton communit ...
. It is an ultra-
plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water (or air) that are unable to propel themselves against a current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a crucia ...
ic marine alga.


Description

''Pelagomonas calceolata'' is uniflagellate, about 1.5 × 3 μm in size. Microtubular roots, striated roots and a second basal body are absent. A thin organic
theca In biology, a theca (plural thecae) is a sheath or a covering. Botany In botany, the theca is related to plant's flower anatomy. The theca of an angiosperm consists of a pair of microsporangia that are adjacent to each other and share a comm ...
surrounds most of the cell. There is a single chloroplast with a girdle
lamella Lamella (plural lamellae) means a small plate or flake in Latin, and in English may refer to: Biology * Lamella (mycology), a papery rib beneath a mushroom cap * Lamella (botany) * Lamella (surface anatomy), a plate-like structure in an animal ...
and a single, dense mitochondrion with tubular
cristae A crista (; plural cristae) is a fold in the inner membrane of a mitochondrion. The name is from the Latin for ''crest'' or ''plume'', and it gives the inner membrane its characteristic wrinkled shape, providing a large amount of surface area fo ...
. A single
Golgi body The Golgi apparatus (), also known as the Golgi complex, Golgi body, or simply the Golgi, is an organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. Part of the endomembrane system in the cytoplasm, it packages proteins into membrane-bound vesicles i ...
with swelled cisternae lies beneath the flagellum, and each cell has an ejectile organelle that putatively releases a cylindrical structure. A
vacuole A vacuole () is a membrane-bound organelle which is present in plant and fungal cells and some protist, animal, and bacterial cells. Vacuoles are essentially enclosed compartments which are filled with water containing inorganic and organic m ...
, or cluster of vacuoles, contains the putative carbohydrate storage product.


References


Further reading

*Heimann, Kirsten, Andersen, Robert A., and Wetherbee, Richard (1995) The flagellar development cycle of the uniflagellate Pelagomonas calceolata (Pelagophyceae). Journal of Phycology, 31 . pp. 577–583. *


External links

*
WORMS entryalgae BASE entry
Ochrophyta Protists described in 2004 Ochrophyte genera Monotypic algae genera {{Heterokont-stub