{"id":935,"date":"2016-05-25T22:57:50","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T05:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms-spring\/?p=935"},"modified":"2016-06-04T11:26:01","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T18:26:01","slug":"protoperidinium-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms-spring\/protoperidinium-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Protoperidinium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Protoperidinium\u00a0<\/h3>\n

Common Name: Whirl Round<\/p>\n

By: Mishauna Watkinson\u00a0
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General Information\u00a0<\/h3>\n

Protoperidinium comes from protos, meaning first, while peridineo means to whirl around, both stemming from Greek origin. Protoperidinium are part of the dinoflagellate phylum and belong to the order Peridiniales( Hayashi et al, 2007). \u00a0G\u00f3mez (2005) described 264 species of Protoperidinium which can be found globally. Protoperidinium range between 50\u00b5m -100\u00b5m and can be red, brown, or yellow in the inner parts of the organism depending on their diet (Hayashi et.al, 2007). Protoperidinium have armored cellulose thecal plates on the outside with apical or antapical horns or spines. The organism is divided by its plates into an upper and lower part of the organism. The Protoperidinium genus is divided into two subgenera Protoperidinium and Archaeperidinium on the basis of numbers of thecal plates (2-6) (Gul et al.,2014). \u00a0A flagella (tail) is located between the horns that allows the Protoperidinium to maneuver around.<\/p>\n

Ecology<\/h3>\n

These organisms can be found in both coastal and oceanic waters, preferring warmer to tropical climates \"proto<\/a>(Johannesson et al, 2000). \u00a0They capture individual phytoplankton cells, sometimes nearly as large as themselves and either engulfs the entire cell or transfer body fluids of the captured call into themselves by way of a pallium or a peduncle. This pallium is made from cytoplasm within the Protoperidinium; some of their main prey consists of Ditylum brightwellii, Thalassiosira sp., and Gonyaulax polyedra (Buskey, 1997). Protoperidinium are known to be \u201cpicky eaters\u201d Some species of Protoperidinium, have been shown to survive for extended periods of time, up to 71 days in the case of P.<\/em> depressum<\/em>, in conditions of starvation or extremely low food availability (Gibble et al. 2007).\u00a0<\/p>\n