Chamaesiphon
| Generic name: CHAMAESIPHON A. Braun et Grunow, 1865. – In Rabenhorst, Algen Eur. Decaden 72/73: 1726. - nomen conservandum | ||||||||||
| Synonyms: ARISTELLA Kutzing 1834 BRACHYTHRIX A. Braun in Rabenhorst, 1865. Fl. Eur. Alg. 2: 118. SPHAEROGONIUM Rostafinski 1883 GODLEWSKIA Janczewski 1883 incl. CHAMAESOPHONIPSIS Fritsch 1929 |
||||||||||
| Diagnosis: | ||||||||||
| Type species: Chamaesiphon confervicola A. Braun in Rabenhorst 1865 | ||||||||||
| Description: Komárek & Anagnostidis (1998): Cells heteropolar, slightly or distinctly elongate, attached by their bases to the substrate (stones, plants), to the margin of sheaths of their mother cells or radially and more or less parallely arranged in gelatinous colonies; solitary cells, or micro- to macroscopic colonies, which are shrub-like, more or less spherical (with radially arranged cells in common mucilage) or flat (composed of a few layers of densely and parallely clustered cells). Cells spherical, later growing in club-shaped, cylindrical, pear-shaped, oval or ellipsoidal form; always enveloped by a sheath (pseudovagina), which is thin, colourless or slightly lamellate and yellowish or brownish, opening at the apex after cell division and exocyte separation, at the base usually narrowed and sometimes ending in an adhering pad (disc, sometimes with a very short stipe); the cells are sometimes slightly withdrawn from the base of a sheath; in some species the sheaths are diffluent forming a gelatinous mass, in which daughter cells remain enclosed. Cell content homogeneous, sometimes with distinguishable chromatoplasma (thylakoids are wavy, situated principially parietally but in several modifications, sometimes partly protruding into the centroplasma), in several species with prominent, solitary granules (cyanophycin, carboxysomes); cell content usually pale blue-green, yellowish, olive-green, greyish, pinkish or reddish-violet, sometimes almost colourless (the colour changes in numerous species in one and the same colony. Komárek (1992): Unicellular; solitary, more or less elongated cells or groups of cells joined to the substrate /subg. Chamaesiphon/, or forming microscopic shrub-like colonies or layered, narrow mats with densely and parallely gathered cells on stones or submersed plants, perpendicularly oriented to the substrate /,subg: Godlewskia (Janczewski)Geitler 1925/. Cells always polarized, joined to the substrate with one (basal) end by means of a small mucilaginous pad (cells without pads occur only in upper parts of multilliyered colonies); cells oval, cylindrical or club-shaped, rounded at the apex. Around cells mucilaginous sheaths, fine and diffluent of firm and lamelaed; the sheaths open at the apex during the division process (pseudovaginae). Cell content grey, blue-green or pinkish, usually finely granular, always without aerotopes. Thylakoids localized peripherally, +/- concentrically, sometimes, moreover, with several central localized, coiled thylakoids |
||||||||||
| Genotype differences, molecular data: | ||||||||||
| Reproduction strategies, life cycles, cell division: Komárek & Anagnostidis (1998): Cell division always asymmetric, crosswise near the apex; the separated daughter cells (exocytes) are liberated from opened sheaths or are attached to the empty pseudovagina (origin of shrub-like or layered colonies) or remain in the common colonial mucilage (origin of gelatinous colonies with radially oriented cells). Reproduction by the liberation of exocytes from mother cells or from colonies. Komárek (1992):Cells divide by_the crosswise fission, usually asymmetrically_near the apex ; sometimes develop the apical daughter cells (exocytes) repeatedly in a rapid sequence and form apical chains of exocytes. The cell division at the apical end can repeat several times. Exocytes are motile and join to the end of opened pseudovaginae or separate completely from the mother cell and attach to the substrate. |
||||||||||
| Ultrastructure: | ||||||||||
| Taxonomic position, higher hierarchy: Cyanophyceae, Chrooococcales, Chamaesiphonaceae Notes to taxonomy, misinterpretations: Komárek & Anagnostidis (1998): Several species (Chamaesiphon subglobosus, C. polonicus) are cultured as mono specific strains. In this case they grow in irregular groups, not forming characteristic colonies, C. subglobosus sometimes without sheaths (fig. 487). The heteropolarity is manifested in culture usually only by asymmetric cell division. |
||||||||||
| Ecology, ecophysiology, ecological significance: Komárek (1992):Only freshwater species growing sessile on aquatic plants, on other algae and on stones, on which they cause sometimes coloured (yellow, brown, blackish-violet) spots. One species is epizoic on planktic Crustaceans. Many species have geographically limited areas of distribution; they are characteristic mainly for communities of periphytic algae in mountain creeks (the Alps, the Carpathians, etc.). However, the genus occurs all over the world (different species in different frequences). |
||||||||||
| Physiology and biochemistry: |
||||||||||
| Distribution, endemism, problematic citations: |
||||||||||
| Reference strain: |
||||||||||
| Infrageneric scheme, species concept: |
||||||||||
| List of species: Subgenus Chamaesiphon Chamaesiphon africanus Schmidle 1902 Chamaesiphon amethystinus (Rostafinski) Lemmermann 1910 Chamaesiphon britannicus (Fritsch) Komárek et Anagnostidis 1995 Chamaesiphon carpaticus Starmach 1929 Chamaesiphon confervicola A. Braun in Rabenhorst 1865 Chamaesiphon cylindricus Boye-Petersen 1923 Chamaesiphon cylindrosporus Skuja 1948 Chamaesiphon halophilus Tavera et Komárek 1996 Chamaesiphon incrustans Grunow in Rabenhorst 1865 Chamaesiphon investiens Skuja 1964 Chamaesiphon jaoi Hällfors 1982 Chamaesiphon komarekii Rott 2008. Algological Studies 126: 39 Chamaesiphon longus Hällfors et Munsterhjelm 1982 Chamaesiphon macer Geitler 1925 Chamaesiphon major (Geitler) Komárek et Anagnostidis 1986 Chamaesiphon minimus Schmidle 1902 Chamaesiphon minutus (Rostafinski) Lemmermann 1910 Chamaesiphon portoricensis Gardner 1927 Chamaesiphon rostafinskii Hansgirg 1887 Chamaesiphon sideriphilus Starmach 1929 Chamaesiphon tibeticus Jao et al. 1974 Subgenus Godlewskia Unclear taxa: |
||||||||||
| Keys: | ||||||||||
| List of stains: | ||||||||||
Drawings: Komárek (1992) |
||||||||||
| Application technology: | ||||||||||
Literature:
|
Back to list of valid genera