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Pseudocapsa

Generic name: PSEUDOCAPSA Ercegović, 1925. Acta Bot. Inst. Univ. Zagreb. 1: 95.
Synonyms:
Diagnosis:
Type species: Pseudocapsa dubia Ercegović 1925. - Four described species, probably more taxa under different names.
Descriptions:
Komárek & Anagnostidis (1998): Colonies spherical or irregularly packet-like, in aggregates, microscopic (aggregates often of macroscopic size), with radially or fan-like oriented, later irregularly, densely aggregated cells; colonies enveloped by thin, firm, smooth, colourless, sometimes striated sheaths; often composed of subcolonies. Cells irregular spherical, after division hemispherical, later irregular or in the form of  segments of a sphere, more or less radially oriented in the colonies; in old colonies the cells are densely and irregularly aggregated.

Komárek (1992): Unicellular - colonial; initial cells spherical, later hemispherical up to irregularly rounded-conical, packed into colonies; colonies are in a form of 2-16-celled up to multicelled packet-like aggregates with tightly, radially and "fan-like" oriented cells (with the "conical" part oriented into the centre of a colony), enveloped by a thin, colourless, usually firm, tight and sometimes slightly structured (lamellated) gelatinous envelope (the outer layers of which in several species gelatinate m. and become to be diffluent). Cells blue-green, pale greyish blue-green or yellowish and olive-green, sometimes with several prominent granules in plasma or with finely granular content.

Genotype differences, molecular data:
Reproduction strategies, life cycles, cell division:
Komárek & Anagnostidis (1998): Cell division successively in three or more different planes (mainly radially in colonies); cells do not grow to the original, more or less spherical form before the next division. Nanocytes always lacking.
Komárek (1992): Division of cells in three perpendicular planes in successive generations in the beginning, later divide more or less radially in the colony, without the divided cells having grown into the original spherical shape, but growing more or less into the original size. Multiplication by the disintegration of colonies.
Ultrastructure:
Taxonomic position, higher hierarchy:
Cyanophyceae, Chroococcales, Chroococcaceae
Notes to taxonomy, misinterpretations:
Ecology, ecophysiology, ecological significance:
Komárek (1992): From the four described species, one is known from the subaerophytic localities in calcareous rocks (Europe), one from tropical soils, one from halophilic swamps and one from the plankton of Caspian sea. Probably more species distributed, but overlooked or misinterpreted with other cyanophytes (Chroococcus, Myxosarcina, Gloeocapsa, etc.).
Physiology and biochemistry:
Distribution, endemism, problematic citations:
Reference strain:
Infrageneric scheme, species concept:
List of species:
Pseudocapsa dubia Ercegović 1925
Pseudocapsa maritima Komárek 1956
Pseudocapsa sphaerica (Proškina-Lavrenko) Kováčik 1988
Pseudocapsa venkataramanii Kováčik 1988
Keys:
List of stains:
Drawings:
Komárek 1992
Application technology:
Literature:

  2.1 taxonomy: Ercegović 1925, Starmach 1936, Starmach 1966, Komárek & Anagnostidis 1986, Kováčik 1988, Abdelahad 1989, Anagnostidis & Pantazidou 1991, Komárek 1992, Komárek & Anagnostidis 1998
  2.2 cytomorphology:
  2.3 16S rRNA sequencing:
  2.4 biology and life cycles:
  2.5 ecology: