FAQ
T_LOGIN Log in

Don't have an account on our website?

T_REGISTER Register
Jagiellonian University logo

Morphological redescription and molecular phylogeny of a little-known hypotrichous ciliate, Cyrtohymena torrenticola (Šrámek-Hušek, 1957) Foissner, 1989 (Ciliophora, Oxytrichidae) from Baiyangdian Lake, China

Publication date: 25.07.2025

Acta Protozoologica, 2025, Volume 64, pp. 37-51

https://doi.org/10.4467/16890027AP.25.004.21983

Authors

,
Bowen Zhang
The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
, China
All publications →
,
Lifang Chen
The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
, China
All publications →
,
Haiyang Guo
The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
, China
Baoding No.3 High School
, China
All publications →
,
Ziyan Liu
The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
, China
All publications →
,
Yuntong Guo
The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
, China
All publications →
,
Tengyue Zhang
The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
, China
All publications →
,
Fengchao Li
The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
, China
All publications →
Helmut Berger
Technisches Büro für Ökologie (Consulting Engineering Office for Ecology)
, Austria
All publications →

Titles

Morphological redescription and molecular phylogeny of a little-known hypotrichous ciliate, Cyrtohymena torrenticola (Šrámek-Hušek, 1957) Foissner, 1989 (Ciliophora, Oxytrichidae) from Baiyangdian Lake, China

Abstract

The present study provides a detailed redescription of the very little-known oxytrichid ciliate, Cyrtohymena torrenticola, collected from Baiyangdian Lake in northern China. The morphology of the Chinese population agrees very well with the original description, including a slender, Urosoma-like body outline, a cyrtohymenid oral apparatus, and terminally arranged transverse cirri. In addition, our study shows that C. torrenticola has (i) six dorsal kineties and (ii) yellowish, about 1 µm-sized cortical granules. An improved diagnosis is provided. From four dividers we can conclude (i) that the oral primordium originates de novo, (ii) that all postoral ventral cirri are involved in primordia formation, (iii) that the anlagen V and VI of both proter and opisthe, very likely originate via primary primordia, and (iv) that the dorsal ciliature is formed in the Oxytricha pattern, that is, kinety 3 fragments to form kinety 4 and two dorsomarginal kineties originate from/near the right marginal row anlagen. A phylogeny using SSU rDNA sequence data basically supports the morphological classification in Cyrtohymena. Both the type locality and our record strongly indicate that C. torrenticola prefers limnetic habitats. Our population cannot be used for neotypification because it was collected far away from the type locality.

References

Download references

Alfaro M. (2003) Bayes or bootstrap? A simulation study comparing the performance of Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling and bootstrapping in assessing phylogenetic confidence. Mol. Biol. Evol. 20: 255–266

Berger H. (1999) Monograph of the Oxytrichidae (Ciliophora, Hypotrichia). Monogr. Biol. 78: i–xii, 1–1080

Berger H. (2006) Monograph of the Urostyloidea (Ciliophora, Hypotricha). Monogr. Biol. 85: i–xv, 1–1303

Berger H. (2008) Monograph of the Amphisiellidae and Trachelostylidae (Ciliophora, Hypotricha). Monogr. Biol. 88: i–xvi, 1–737

Berger H. (2011) Monograph of the Gonostomatidae and Kahliellidae (Ciliophora, Hypotricha). Monogr. Biol. 90: i–xiv, 1–741

Berger H. (2018a) Cyrtohymena citrina (Berger & Foissner, 1987) Foissner, 1989 (original combination: Steinia citrina Berger & Foissner, 1987) (Ciliophora, Hypotricha): Update 1.0 on monographic treatment. Ser. Monogr. Cilioph. 1: 1–16

Berger H. (2018b) Six mainly little-known Cyrtohymena species (Ciliophora, Hypotricha): Update 1.0 on monographic treatment. Ser. Monogr. Cilioph. 2: 1–24

Berger H. (2018c) Cyrtohymena Foissner, 1989 and Cyrtohymena muscorum (Kahl, 1932) Foissner, 1989 (original combination Oxytricha (Steinia) muscorum Kahl, 1932) (Ciliophora, Hypotricha): Update 1.0 on monographic treatment. Ser. Monogr. Cilioph. 3: 1–28

Berger H., Foissner W. (1987) Morphology and biometry of some soil hypotrichs (Protozoa: Ciliophora). Zool. Jb. Syst. 114: 193–239

Berger H., Foissner W. (1989) Morphology and biometry of some soil hypotrichs (Protozoa, Ciliophora) from Europe and Japan. Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (Zool.) 55: 19–46

Berger H., Foissner W. (1997) Cladistic relationships and generic characterization of oxytrichid hypotrichs (Protozoa, Ciliophora). Arch. Protistenk. 148: 125–155

Borror A. C. (1972) Revision of the order Hypotrichida (Ciliophora, Protozoa). J. Protozool. 19: 1–23

Diesing K. M. (1866) Revision der Prothelminthen. Abtheilung: Amastigen. I. Amastigen ohne Peristom. Sber. Akad. Wiss. Wien., Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, Abt. I 52 (year 1865): 505–579

Foissner W. (1984) Infraciliatur, Silberliniensystem und Biometrie einiger neuer und wenig bekannter terrestrischer, limnischer und mariner Ciliaten (Protozoa: Ciliophora) aus den Klassen Kinetofragminophora, Colpodea und Polyhymenophora. Stapfia 12: 1–165

Foissner W. (1989) Morphologie und Infraciliatur einiger neuer und wenig bekannter terrestrischer und limnischer Ciliaten (Protozoa, Ciliophora). Sber. öst. Akad. Wiss., Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, Abt. I 196: 173–247

Foissner W. (1992) Estimating the species richness of soil protozoa using the “non-flooded petri dish method”. In: J. J. Lee, A. T. Soldo (eds.), Protocols in Protozoology. Lawrence, Kansas: Society of Protozoologists, pp. B-10.1–B-10.2

Foissner W. (2004) Some new ciliates (Protozoa, Ciliophora) from an Austrian floodplain soil, including a giant, red “flagship”, Cyrtohymena (Cyrtohymenides) aspoecki nov. subgen., nov. spec. Denisia 13: 369–382

Foissner W. (2016) Terrestrial and semiterrestrial ciliates (Protozoa, Ciliophora) from Venezuela and Galápagos. Denisia 35: 1–912

Foissner W., Moon-van der Staay S. Y., van der Staay G. W. M., Hackstein J. H. P., Krautgartner W. D., Berger H. (2004) Reconciling classical and molecular phylogenies in the stichotrichines (Ciliophora, Spirotrichea), including new sequences from some rare species. Eur. J. Protistol. 40: 265–281

Hall T. A. (1999) BioEdit: A user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symp. Ser. 41: 95–98

Hillis D. M., Bull J. J. (1993) An empirical test of bootstrapping as a method for assessing confidence in phylogenetic analysis. Syst. Biol. 42: 182–192

ICZN (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature) (1999) International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, 4th ed., London: International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, xxx + 306 pp.

Kahl A. (1932) Urtiere oder Protozoa I: Wimpertiere oder Ciliata (Infusoria) 3. Spirotricha. Tierwelt Dtl. 25: 399–650

Kumar S., Foissner W. (2015) Biogeographic specializations of two large hypotrich ciliates: Australocirrus shii and A. australis and proposed synonymy of Australocirrus and Cyrtohymenides. Eur. J. Protistol. 51: 210–228

Kwon C. B., Shin M. K. (2013) Two oxytrichid ciliates, Cyrtohymena primicirrata and Oxytricha granulifera (Ciliophora: Sporadotrichida: Oxytrichidae) unknown from Korea. Anim. Syst. Evol. Divers. 29: 23–30

Liu Z. Y., Wang Z. Y., Zhang Q., Wang Q. K., Li F. C. (2024) Description of Holostichides (Extraholostichides) eastensis tianjinensis subgen. nov. subspec. nov. (Ciliophora, Hypotricha) from northern China. Eur. J. Protistol. 92: 126048 (12 pp.)

Lynn D. H. (2008) The Ciliated Protozoa: Characterization, Classification, and Guide to the Literature, Springer, xxxvi + 605 pp.

Medlin L., Elwood H. J., Stickel S., Sogin M. L. (1988) The characterization of enzymatically amplified eukaryotic 16S-like rRNA-coding regions. Gene 71: 491–499

Miller M. A., Pfeiffer W., Schwartz T. (2010) Creating the CIPRES science gateway for inference of large phylogenetic trees. In: Proceedings of the 2010 Gateway Computing Environments Workshop (GCE), New Orleans, LA, pp. 1–8

Omar A., Jung J.-H. (2020) Morphology and molecular phylogeny of the soil ciliate Cyrtohymena seorakensis sp. n. (Ciliophora, Hypotricha, Oxytrichidae). Zootaxa 2758: 561–572

Omar A., Jung J., Lee G., Jung J.-H. (2025) Integrative studies shed light on the pseudocryptic genus Crassohymena n. gen. (Protozoa, Ciliophora). Protist 176 126074 (14 pp.)

Pan X., Bourland W., Song W. (2013) Protargol synthesis: an inhouse protocol. J. Eukaryot. Microbiol. 60: 609–614

Ronquist F., Huelsenbeck J. (2003) MrBayes 3: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models. Bioinformatics 19: 1572–1574

Singh J., Kamra K. (2015) Morphology and molecular phylogeny of an Indian population of Cyrtohymena citrina (Ciliophora, Hypotricha), including remarks on ontogenesis of Urosomoida-Notohymena-Cyrtohymena group. Europ. J. Protistol. 51: 280–289

Song W., Wilbert N., Warren A. (2002) New contribution to the morphology and taxonomy of four marine hypotrichous ciliates from Qingdao, China (Protozoa: Ciliophora). Acta Protozool. 41: 145–162

Šrámek-Hušek R. (1954) Neue und wenig bekannte Ciliaten aus der Tschechoslowakei und ihre Stellung im Saprobiensystem. Arch. Protistenk. 100: 246–267

Šrámek-Hušek R. (1956) Společenstva nálevníků z povodí Moravice a jejich vztahy k čistotĕ vody (Die Ciliatengemeinschaften aus dem Flussgebiete von Moravice und ihre Beziehungen zur Wasserverunreinigung). Vêst. Čsl. Zool. Spol. 20: 75–85

Šrámek-Hušek R. (1957) K poznání nálevníků ostravského kraje (Zur Kenntnis der Ciliaten des Ostrauer-Gebietes [Tschechoslovakei]). Vêst. Čsl. Zool. Spol. 21: 1–24

Trifinopoulos J., Nguyen L. T., von Haeseler A., Minh B. Q. (2016) W-IQ-TREE: A fast online phylogenetic tool for maximum likelihood analysis. Nucl. Acids. Res. 44 (W1): W232–W235

Voss H. J. (1991) Die Morphogenese von Cyrtohymena muscorum (Kahl, 1932) Foissner, 1989 (Ciliophora, Oxytrichidae). Arch. Protistenk. 140: 67–81

Warren A., Patterson D. J., Dunthorn M., Clamp J. C., Achilles-Day U. E. M., Aescht E., Al-Farraj S. A., Al-Quraishy S., Al-Rasheid K., Carr M., Day J. G., Dellinger M., El-Serehy H. A., Fan Y., Gao F., Gao S., Gong J., Gupta R., Hu X., Kamra K., Langlois G., Lin X., Lipscomb D., Lobban C. S., Luporini P., Lynn D. H., Ma H., Macek M., Mackenzie-Dodds J., Makhija S., Mansergh R. I., Martín-Cereceda M., McMiller N., Montagnes D. J. S., Nikolaeva S., Ong’ondo G. O., Pérez-Uz B., Purushothaman J., Quintela-Alonso P., Rotterová J., Santoferrara L., Shao C., Shen Z., Shi X., Song W., Stoeck T., La Terza A., Vallesi A., Wang M., Weisse T., Wiackowski C., Wu L., Xu K., Yi Z., Zufall R., Agatha S. (2017) Beyond the “Code”: A guide to the description and documentation of biodiversity in ciliated protists (Alveolata, Ciliophora). J. Eukaryot. Microbiol. 64: 439–554

Wilbert N. (1975) Eine verbesserte Technik der Protargolimprägnation für Ciliaten. Mikrokosmos 64: 171–179

Xu W., Zhao Y., Pan B., Liu Y., Li Y., Bourland W. A., Luo X. (2020) Morphology, morphogenesis, and phylogeny of Urosoma caudata (Ehrenberg, 1833) Berger, 1999 (Ciliophora, Hypotrichia) based on a Chinese population. J. Eukaryot. Microbiol. 67: 76–85

Zhang T., Wang Y., Cheng T., Ma J., Vd’ačný P., Song W., Shao C. (2020) Systematics and multi-gene phylogeny of the subfamily Nothoholostichinae (Ciliophora, Hypotrichia), with integrative description of a new marine species Nothoholosticha luporinii n. sp. Front. Mar. Sci. 7: 610886 (17 pp.)

Zhuang C., Ouyang Z., Xu W., Bai Y., Zhou W., Zheng H., Wang X. (2011) Impacts of human activities on the hydrology of Baiyangdian Lake, China. Environ. Earth Sci. 62: 1343–1350

Information

Information: Acta Protozoologica, 2025, Volume 64, pp. 37-51

Article type: Original scientific article

Authors

The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
China
ROR ID:

 Research Organization Registry icon 01p884a79

The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
China
ROR ID:

 Research Organization Registry icon 01p884a79

The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
China
ROR ID:

 Research Organization Registry icon 01p884a79

Baoding No.3 High School
China
The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
China
ROR ID:

 Research Organization Registry icon 01p884a79

The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
China
ROR ID:

 Research Organization Registry icon 01p884a79

The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
China
ROR ID:

 Research Organization Registry icon 01p884a79

The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, College of Life Sciences, Hebei University
China
ROR ID:

 Research Organization Registry icon 01p884a79

Technisches Büro für Ökologie (Consulting Engineering Office for Ecology)
Austria

Published at: 25.07.2025

Received at: 08.01.2025

Accepted at: 09.03.2025

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY 4.0  licence icon

Percentage share of authors:

Bowen Zhang (Author) - 12.5%
Lifang Chen (Author) - 12.5%
Haiyang Guo (Author) - 12.5%
Ziyan Liu (Author) - 12.5%
Yuntong Guo (Author) - 12.5%
Tengyue Zhang (Author) - 12.5%
Fengchao Li (Author) - 12.5%
Helmut Berger (Author) - 12.5%

Article corrections:

-

Publication languages:

English

Morphological redescription and molecular phylogeny of a little-known hypotrichous ciliate, Cyrtohymena torrenticola (Šrámek-Hušek, 1957) Foissner, 1989 (Ciliophora, Oxytrichidae) from Baiyangdian Lake, China

quote

download files

RIS BIB ENDNOTE