New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

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Identification by electron microscopy of marine nanoplankton from New Zealand, including the description of four new species

0JVIND MOESTRUP

Institut for Sporeplanter, 0. Farimagsgade 2 D, DK-1353 Copenhagen K., Denmark

Abstract The marine nanoplankton of New Zealand has been examined for the first time by a combination of transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Of the c. 50 taxa found, practically all are known also from the Northern Hemisphere. As in this part of the world, the nanoplankton consists mainly of members of the systematic groups Chrysophyceae, Prymnesiophyceae (Haptophyceae), Loxo- and Prasinophyceae, and Choanoflagellida. Four new species are described: the prymnesiophytes Chrysochromulina novae-zelandiae and Phaeocystis scrobiculata, the choanoflagellate Bicosta antennigera, and Petasaria heterolepis, a flagellate of unknown affinities. Cells of the latter are covered by a scaly periplast, which contains both unmineralised and mineralised scales, of which the latter are siliceous (as demonstrated by X-ray microanalysis). In the New Zealand material 35 species could be identified, of which only the coccolithophorid Coccolithus huxleyi and the prasino-phyte Pyramimonas grossii have been found in New Zealand previously.

Received 12 June 1978
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1979, Vol. 17:61-95

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (10255K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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