Abstract
THERE has been increasing interest in larger Foraminifera that have symbiotic algae which apparently adapt them to thrive in certain shallow, nutrient-poor tropical seas where they are responsible for a significant or even dominant fraction of the carbon fixed in the benthos1,2. Studies of fine structure of several species of these giant protozoa have suggested that their algal symbionts are diatoms6–12 without frustules (shells). This suggestion is itself remarkable because almost all marine invertebrate–brown algal associations (for example, those of corals and tridacnid clams) involve dinoflagellates. Unfortunately, knowledge of the architecture of the frustule is needed for the identification of a diatom. However, because the formation of the outer envelopes of the dinoflagellate and chlorophyte endosymbionts of other large species of Foraminifera is repressed within the hosts6,713 but not in culture5,14, we hoped that if the diatom endosymbionts could be isolated and cultivated they would form characteristic frustules. We report here the successful isolation and cultivation of diatom symbionts from foraminifera.
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LEE, J., MCENERY, M., SHILO, M. et al. Isolation and cultivation of diatom symbionts from larger Foraminifera (Protozoa). Nature 280, 57–58 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/280057a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/280057a0
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