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Chlorophyta or Prasinophyta is a taxon of green algae informally called chlorophytes. The name is used in two very different senses, so care is needed to determine the use by a particular author. In older classification systems, it refers to a highly paraphyletic group of all the green algae within the green plants (Viridiplantae) and thus includes about 7,000 species of mostly aquatic photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. In newer classifications, it refers to the sister of the streptophytes/charophytes. The clade Streptophyta consists of the Charophyta in which the Embryophyta emerged. In this sense the Chlorophyta includes only about 4,300 species. About 90% of all known species live in freshwater. Like the land plants, green algae contain chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b and store food as starch in their plastids.
The green algae are a large, informal grouping of algae consisting of the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/Streptophyta, which are now placed in separate divisions, together with the more basal Mesostigmatophyceae, Chlorokybophyceae and Spirotaenia.
Thomas (Tom) Cavalier-Smith, FRS, FRSC, NERC Professorial Fellow, is a Professor of Evolutionary Biology in the Department of Zoology, at the University of Oxford. His research has led to discovery of a number of unicellular organisms (protists) and definition of taxonomic positions, such as introduction of the kingdom Chromista, and other groups including Chromalveolata, Opisthokonta, Rhizaria, and Excavata. He is well known for his system of classification of all organisms.
The Cercozoa are a group of single-celled eukaryotes. They lack shared morphological characteristics at the microscopic level, being defined by molecular phylogenies of rRNA and actin or polyubiquitin. They are the natural predators of many species of microbacteria and Archea.
Streptophyta, informally the streptophytes, is a clade of plants. The composition of the clade varies considerably between authors, but the definition employed here includes land plants and all green algae except the Chlorophyta and possibly the more basal Mesostigmatophyceae, Chlorokybophyceae, and Spirotaenia.
The Charophyta or charophytes is a group of freshwater green algae, sometimes treated as a division, but also as a superdivision, or an unranked clade. The terrestrial plants, the Embryophyta most likely emerged within Charophyta, possibly from terrestrial unicellular charophytes, with the class Zygnematophyceae as a sister group.
Chytridiomycetes is a class of fungi. Members are found in soil, fresh water, and saline estuaries. They are first known from the Rhynie chert. It has recently been redefined to exclude the taxa Neocallimastigomycota and Monoblepharidomycetes, which are now a phylum and a sister-class respectively.
Viridiplantae are a clade of eukaryotic organisms that comprise approximately 450,000–500,000 species and play important roles in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They are made up of the green algae, which are primarily aquatic, and the land plants (embryophytes), which emerged from within them. Green algae traditionally excludes the land plants, rendering them a paraphyletic group. Since the realization that the embryophytes emerged from within the green algae, some authors are starting to include them. They have cells with cellulose in their cell walls, and primary chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria that contain chlorophylls a and b and lack phycobilins.
Charophyceae is a class of charophyte green algae, and consists of the single order Charales, commonly known as "stoneworts" and "brittleworts". It is a basal Phragmoplastophyta clade as sister of another unnamed clade which contains the Embryophytes. Charophyceae are a class within the Streptophyta. Current consensus treats Charophyceae as a class under division Charophyta, with Chlorophyta remaining a distinct division. In 2018, the first nuclear genome sequence from a species belonging to the most basal branch within the Phragmoplastophyta, the Charophyceae, has been published: that of Chara braunii
The Archaeplastida are a major group of eukaryotes, comprising the red algae (Rhodophyta), the green algae, and the land plants, and some smaller groups such as the glaucophytes. All of the lineages of Archaeplastida have become photoautotrophic, except for the lineage Rhodelphidia, sister to the Rhodophyta, which is still a non-photosynthetic predatorial (eukaryotrophic) flagellate. The Archaeplastida have chloroplasts that are surrounded by two membranes, suggesting that they were acquired directly through a single endosymbiosis event by feeding on a cyanobacterium. All other groups which have chloroplasts, besides the amoeboid Paulinella chromatophora, have chloroplasts surrounded by three or four membranes, suggesting they were acquired secondarily from red or green algae. Unlike red and green algae, glaucophytes have never been involved in secondary endosymbiosis events.
The Archamoebae are a group of protists originally thought to have evolved before the acquisition of mitochondria by eukaryotes. They include genera that are internal parasites or commensals of animals. A few species are human pathogens, causing diseases such as amoebic dysentery. The other genera of archamoebae live in freshwater habitats and are unusual among amoebae in possessing flagella. Most have a single nucleus and flagellum, but the giant amoeba Pelomyxa has many of each.
Dikarya is a subkingdom of Fungi that includes the divisions Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, both of which in general produce dikaryons, may be filamentous or unicellular, but are always without flagella. The Dikarya are most of the so-called "higher fungi", but also include many anamorphic species that would have been classified as molds in historical literature. Phylogenetically the two divisions regularly group together. In a 1998 publication, Thomas Cavalier-Smith referred to this group as the Neomycota.
The Prasinophytes or chlorophyta are a class of unicellular green algae. Prasinophytes mainly include marine planktonic species, as well as some freshwater representatives. The prasinophytes are morphologically diverse, including flagellates with one to eight flagella and non-motile (coccoid) unicells. The cells of many species are covered with organic body scales; others are naked. Well studied genera include Ostreococcus, considered to be the smallest free-living eukaryote, and Micromonas, both of which are found in marine waters worldwide. Prasinophytes have simple cellular structures, containing a single chloroplast and a single mitochondrion. The genomes are relatively small compared to other eukaryotes.
Conosa is a grouping of Amoebozoa. It is subdivided into three groups – Archamoebae, Variosea (paraphyletic) and Mycetozoa (polyphyletic).
Bigyra is a heterokont grouping.
Brachiozoa is a grouping of lophophorate animals including Brachiopoda and Phoronida.
The superkingdom Metakaryota was defined by Thomas Cavalier-Smith as advanced eukaryotes resulting from the endosymbiosis of a proteobacterium, giving rise to the mitochondrion, by an archezoan eukaryote. However, with the collapse of the Archezoa hypothesis, this grouping was abandoned in later schemes.
The Palmophyllophyceae are a proposed basal Chlorophyte clade consisting of the Palmophyllales and Prasinococcales.
The Phragmoplastophyta or Streptophytina are a proposed sister clade of the Klebsormidiaceae, with which they form the Streptophyte/Charophyte clade. The Phragmoplastophyta consist of the Charophycaea and another unnamed clade which contains the Coleochaetophyceae, Zygnematophyceae, Mesotaeniaceae, and Embryophytes. It is an important step in the emergence of land plants within the green algae. It is equivalent to the ZCC clade/grade, cladistically granting the Embryophyta.
The Chlorophytina are a proposed basal Tetraphytina clade. It is currently seen as sister of the Pedinomonadaceae.
References
- ↑ Cavalier-Smith, T. (1998-08-01). "A revised six-kingdom system of life". Biological Reviews. 73 (3): 203–266. doi:10.1111/j.1469-185x.1998.tb00030.x. ISSN 1469-185X. PMID 9809012. S2CID 6557779.
- ↑ Brodie, Juliet; Lewis, Jane (2007-11-26). Unravelling the algae: the past, present, and future of algal systematics. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-8493-7990-1.
- ↑ Leliaert, Frederik; Tronholm, Ana; Lemieux, Claude; Turmel, Monique; DePriest, Michael S.; Bhattacharya, Debashish; Karol, Kenneth G.; Fredericq, Suzanne; Zechman, Frederick W. (2016-05-09). "Chloroplast phylogenomic analyses reveal the deepest-branching lineage of the Chlorophyta, Palmophyllophyceae class. nov". Scientific Reports. 6: 25367. doi:10.1038/srep25367. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 4860620 . PMID 27157793.
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