Conclusions and renaming of UWO 241
This study further expands more than two decades of work on the
enigmatic, Antarctic alga, Chlamydomonas sp. UWO 241 which have
documented novel adaptation strategies to survive permanent extreme
conditions. The taxonomic identity of UWO 241 has been the subject of
debate: originally identified on a morphological basis as C.
subcaudata by Priscu & Neale (1995), the organism was erroneously
identified as C. raudensis UWO 241 (Pocock et al., 2004).
Recently, a thorough revisiting on the taxonomy of the strain performed
by Possmayer et al. (Possmayer et al., 2016) concluded that UWO 241
represents a unique lineage within the Moewusinia clade, and it was
therefore renamed Chlamydomonas sp. UWO 241 as a place holder.
Molecular phylogenetic analysis of the full length 18S rRNA gene
revealed that the closest known relative of UWO 241 is a marine alga,Chlamydomonas parkeae SAG 24.89 (95% identity). Given the
geographical isolation and unique physiology, combined with the
molecular and genomic analyses, we suggest that UWO 241 is a unique
strain. According to requirements of the International Code of
Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (McNeill et al., 2012) we
propose to rename the strain Chlamydomonas priscuii in
recognition of John C. Priscu, the investigator who originally isolated
the strain in 1995 (Neale & Priscu, 1995).