Recent evolutionary diversification of a protist lineage

Abstract

Here, we have identified a protist (dinoflagellate) lineage that has diversified recently in evolutionary terms. The species members of this lineage inhabit cold-water marine and lacustrine habitats, which are distributed along a broad range of salinities (0–32) and geographic distances (0–18 000 km). Moreover, the species present different degrees of morphological and sometimes physiological variability. Altogether, we analysed 30 strains, generating 55 new DNA sequences. The nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) sequences (including rapidly evolving introns) were very similar or identical among all the analysed isolates. This very low nrDNA differentiation was contrasted by a relatively high cytochrome b (COB) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymorphism, even though the COB evolves very slowly in dinoflagellates. The 16 Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian phylogenies constructed using nr/mtDNA indicated that the studied cold-water dinoflagellates constitute a monophyletic group (supported also by the morphological analyses), which appears to be evolutionary related to marine-brackish and sometimes toxic Pfiesteria species. We conclude that the studied dinoflagellates belong to a lineage which has diversified recently and spread, sometimes over long distances, across low-temperature environments which differ markedly in ecology (marine versus lacustrine communities) and salinity. Probably, this evolutionary diversification was promoted by the variety of natural selection regimes encountered in the different environments.