Synura spp

Wolfgang Bettighofer · Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:23 am

Wolfgang Bettighofer wrote:Hi out there,

thanks for posting the interesting pictures. One additional note to the stigma topic. Ralfs picture shows great detail and we can see red dots. We also can clearly see siliceous scales. How does this match? Siliceous scales -> Synura, Stigma -> maybe Uroglena

I had similar problems until I ID Synura sphagnicola using the marvellous book of Martin Kreutz with his breathtaking photos "The Sphagnum Ponds of Simmelried in Germany: A Biodiversity Hot-Spot for Microscopic Organisms". Look at following link:

http://www.shaker.eu/Catalogue/details. ... 322-2544-7
High printing quality, very useful, highly recommended! And: Most of protists are cosmopolitan...

Cheers, Wolfgang

Oh, I forgot to write something essential...
The red dots on Ralf's photo are red colored oil drops. I think that his picture showes a specimen of Synura sphagnicola. So Ken's picture also shows a Synura, probably S. uvella.

Wolfgang

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:38 am

Wolfgang wrote:

The red dots on Ralf's photo are red colored oil drops. I think that his picture showes a specimen of Synura sphagnicola. So Ken's picture also shows a Synura, probably S. uvella.

Oil drops

Wolfgang Bettighofer · Mon Mar 19, 2007 6:29 am

Ken Ramos wrote:Wolfgang wrote:
The red dots on Ralf's photo are red colored oil drops. I think that his picture showes a specimen of Synura sphagnicola. So Ken's picture also shows a Synura, probably S. uvella.
Oil drops

Yes. The protist group named Chrysophyceae to which Synura belongs produces oil instead of amylum (green algae, plants) or paramylum (i. e. Euglenae) for reserve (I hope you can understand my german English

).
Red color due to carotinoids.

Further questions are welcome...

Wolfgang

ralfwagner · Post by **ralfwagner** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:56 am

Hello Wolfgang,

thanks for your useful hints concerning the red dots in my picture. As I already mentioned, I didn't try to indentify that species at the time of my last posting. So, I was sure, that the red dots were a stigma. I now found that species in Martin Kreutz's book on page 25, fig. 5. identified as Synura sphagnicola. Surprisingly, we find written there, that the red dots are not a stigma, but oil droplets! This is new to me. Up to now I only knew that diatoms are storing oil-droplets.

On page 23, fig. 1 we find another possibilty to identify what is shown in Ken's picture. It is an Uroglena volvox colonie. Unfortunately (for copyright reasons) I can't show a copy of that picture here, but it looks exactly like the one on Ken's picture. I am thinking that the final ID depends on the fact if there is stigma or not on Ken's pic.

However, I would like to recommend to buy at least the (nonprintable) pdf-version of the book "The Sphagnum Ponds of Simmelried in Germany: A Biodiversity Hot-Spot for Microscopic Organisms" by Martin kreutz, too. In Germany the price for the pdf-version is only 3 Euros!

Wolfgang Bettighofer · Mon Mar 19, 2007 3:11 pm

ralfwagner wrote:Hello Wolfgang,

...
On page 23, fig. 1 we find another possibilty to identify what is shown in Ken's picture. It is an Uroglena volvox colonie. Unfortunately (for copyright reasons) I can't show a copy of that picture here, but it looks exactly like the one on Ken's picture. I am thinking that the final ID depends on the fact if there is stigma or not on Ken's pic...

Hi Ralf,

yes, indeed, Ken's picture shows very similar structures to figure 1 on page 23 of Martin's book. The shapes of cells are similar, but: Siliceous scales or not make the difference. So Ken: Please take a picture with higher resolution.

Based on Ken's shot I made a digital close up. Arrow indicates an area with structures like scales. In addition we see more than one red dot per cell.
Anyway. I think next time we all know where we have to look at.

Cheers, Wolfgang

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 3:36 pm

Wolfgang asked:

So Ken: Please take a picture with higher resolution.

I have no more of them in my collections, they have all since died out. This one here is at 100% and @ 7 megs. Sorry

Wolfgang Bettighofer · Mon Mar 19, 2007 3:39 pm

Ken Ramos wrote:Wolfgang asked:
So Ken: Please take a picture with higher resolution.
I have no more of them in my collections, they have all since died out. This one here is at 100% and @ 7 megs. Sorry

Hi Ken,

it's ok. I think we have indicatores enough for Synura.

Wolfgang