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First record of a rare species, Polyasterias problematica (Prasinophyceae), in Balsfjord, northern Norway

  • Anna M. Kubiszyn

    Anna M. Kubiszyn is an assistant professor at the Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences. Her main interests lie in taxonomy and ecology of Arctic marine protists, especially dinoflagellates and ciliates. She has a special focus on the effects of Atlantic water inflow variability on the protist community structure in the West Spitsbergen area. Her current research includes the time-spatial distribution of planktonic protist communities in the North Atlantic Current in terms of the environmental conditions.

     EMAIL logo     and Camilla Svensen

    Camilla Svensen is an associate professor at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. She has been working with many aspects of plankton ecology, seasonality and production. One of her main research interests is the downward flux of carbon from the euphotic zone, and the different biological processes regulating this flux. Her main research areas include high-latitude and Arctic ecosystems.
Published/Copyright: June 13, 2018
Botanica Marina
From the journal Botanica Marina Volume 61 Issue 4

Abstract

Polyasterias problematica is a poorly investigated prasinophyte species, practically known only from a few, primarily historical studies. Fragmentary information on the species indicates that P. problematica is mainly distributed in the euphotic zone of the Canadian and Russian Arctic, Atlantic Canada, the mid-Atlantic and some European seas. Here, we present the first record of this species in the Balsfjord waters, northern Norway. A detailed morphological description, with line drawings and microscopy-based photographs, as well as information on its up-to-date geographical distribution and possible explanations for its extraordinary scarcity are provided.

Keywords: Balsfjord; northern Norway; planktonic protists; Polyasterias problematica; Prasinophyceae

About the authors

Anna M. Kubiszyn

Anna M. Kubiszyn is an assistant professor at the Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences. Her main interests lie in taxonomy and ecology of Arctic marine protists, especially dinoflagellates and ciliates. She has a special focus on the effects of Atlantic water inflow variability on the protist community structure in the West Spitsbergen area. Her current research includes the time-spatial distribution of planktonic protist communities in the North Atlantic Current in terms of the environmental conditions.

Camilla Svensen

Camilla Svensen is an associate professor at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. She has been working with many aspects of plankton ecology, seasonality and production. One of her main research interests is the downward flux of carbon from the euphotic zone, and the different biological processes regulating this flux. Her main research areas include high-latitude and Arctic ecosystems.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and the editor Dr. Michel Poulin for his thorough review of the manuscript. We also thank professor Józef Maria Wiktor (Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences) for protist taxonomic consultations and comments on the manuscript, as well as Wiola Rasmus (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology) for preparing the line drawings. This study was funded by The Fram Centre flagship “Fjord and Coast” and was implemented with the support of the Let’s Sea (2015/17/N/NZ8/01642) and AREX (W12/Norway/2016) projects. The publication has been financed from the funds of the Leading National Research Centre (KNOW) received by the Centre for Polar Studies for the period 2014–2018. Author contributions: AMK – protist sample analysis and taxonomic identification, iconography preparation, and manuscript writing; CS – sample collection and contribution to the manuscript.

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Received: 2017-12-12
Accepted: 2018-05-25
Published Online: 2018-06-13
Published in Print: 2018-07-26

©2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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  2. In this issue
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  15. First record of a rare species, Polyasterias problematica (Prasinophyceae), in Balsfjord, northern Norway
https://doi.org/10.1515/bot-2017-0123
Keywords for this article
Balsfjord; northern Norway; planktonic protists; Polyasterias problematica; Prasinophyceae

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. In this issue
  3. Physiology and ecology
  4. Environmental correlates of Thalassia hemprichii status descriptors: an evaluation of tools for diagnostic monitoring
  5. Differences in flowering sex ratios between native and invasive populations of the seagrass Halophila stipulacea
  6. Microspongium alariae in Alaria esculenta: a widely-distributed non-parasitic brown algal endophyte that shows cell modifications within its host
  7. Fungal assemblages associated with commercial bivalve species in coastal waters of the Sea of Japan, Russia
  8. Taxonomy/phylogeny and biogeography
  9. Heading northward to Scandinavia: Undaria pinnatifida in the northern Wadden Sea
  10. The genus Rosenvingea (Phaeophyceae: Scytosiphonaceae) in south-west Australia, with the description of Rosenvingea australis sp. nov.
  11. Solieria incurvata (Solieriaceae, Rhodophyta), a new species from Venezuela based on morpho-anatomical and molecular evidence
  12. Morosphaeria muthupetensis sp. nov. (Morosphaeriaceae) from India: morphological characterization and multigene phylogenetic inference
  13. Studies of North Carolina marine algae XIV: increased diversity of flattened offshore Gracilaria (Gracilariales, Rhodophyta) species revealed by DNA sequences of contemporary specimens and the G. mammillaris holotype
  14. First report, based on morpho-anatomical data, of the green alga Pseudocodium okinawense (Bryopsidales, Chlorophyta) in the Mediterranean Sea
  15. First record of a rare species, Polyasterias problematica (Prasinophyceae), in Balsfjord, northern Norway
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