Labyrinthula
Labyrinthula Cienkowski (ref. ID; 1618)
[ref. ID; 1618]
Minute forms feeding on various species of algae in fresh or salt water; often brightly colored due to carotin. Jepps (1931) found these organisms common in marine aquaria. Young (1943) considers the six known species as actually three species and two varieties, while Watson (1951) holds that only one species, L. macrocytis, should be reorganized. (ref. ID; 1618)
- Labyrinthula cienkowskii Zopf (ref. ID; 1618)
- Labyrinthula macrocystis Cienkowski (ref. ID; 1618) or Cienkowsky (ref. ID; 3497)
Descriptions
Attacks Vaucheria in fresh water. (ref. ID; 1618)
Labyrinthula macrocystis Cienkowski (ref. ID; 1618) or Cienkowsky (ref. ID; 3497)
Descriptions
Renn (1934, 1936) found a species in the diseased leaf-tissue of the 'spotting and darkening' eel-grass, Zostera marina, along the Atlantic coast of the United States. Young (1943) identified the organism which he studied as L. macrocystis, and noted that its hosts included various algae and three genera of Naiadaceae; Zostera, Ruppia and Zannichellina. The 'net-plasmodium' contains fusiform cells which average in size 18 by 4 um and which multiply by binary fission; many cells encyst together within a tough, opaque membrane. The growth is beat at 14-24 degrees C, and at 12-22 percent chlorinity (Young). Watson and Ordal (1951) cultivated the organism on agar and sea water with various bacteria, and found that the organism is fusiform in young cultures; highly motile; filamentous projections are formed from the flat mucoid lamellae, secreated by the organism, and expand to form passways over which the organism travels; holozoic, saprozoic. (ref. ID; 1618)
The fusiform cells make a colony attaching each other by side by or connecting with a common pseudopodium in a protoplasmic tube. The terminal pseudopodia which are rarely bifid, move as well as flagella, while the connecting ones have a fine protoplasmic tube, and are usually changeable in length and diameter. The tubular membrane is temporally composed and gradually absorbed into a cell. When a new cell is formed, the flagellate pseudopodium is transformed to the tubular connection as it is. A few of contractile vacuoles usually seen in a cell. (ref. ID; 3497)
Measurements
Length without pseudopodia 5-7 um; breadth 2-3 um. (ref. ID; 3497)