JPR Advance Access originally published online on March 3, 2005
Journal of Plankton Research 2005 27(4):323-330; doi:10.1093/plankt/fbi007
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Journal of Plankton Research Vol. 27 No. 4 © Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved
Distribution of the cyanobacterium Richelia intracellularis as an epiphyte of the diatom Chaetoceros compressus in the western Pacific Ocean
1 Station Marine de Wimereux, Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, CNRS-UMR 8013 Elico, 28 Avenue Foch, BP 80, F-62930 Wimereux, France, 2 Department of Aquatic Biosciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo, Tokyo 1138657, Japan.
* Corresponding Author: fernando.gomez{at}fitoplancton.com
Received November 30, 2004; accepted in principle February 10, 2005; accepted for publication February 21, 2005; published online March 3, 2005
The few available records on the association of the diazotroph heterocystous cyanobacterium Richelia intracellularis epiphytically with Chaetoceros compressus are restricted to the Indian and western Pacific Oceans, whereas the association of R. intracellularis as an endosymbiont in other diatoms is ubiquitous in warm oceans. From ten cruises in the western Pacific Ocean, the Richelia-Chaetoceros consortia were exclusively observed in the periphery of the geographic proliferations of C. compressus, coinciding with the overlapping area of the populations of asymbiotic C. compressus and R. intracellularis as an endosymbiont in Rhizosolenia clevei.