Talk:Ostreococcus

Free-living

What does it mean free-living in this context? Does it mean that there are non-free-living eukaryotes smaller than this one? Cosmi (talk) 19:19, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes Cosmi, there are smaller intracellular parasites.Gorton k (talk) 11:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Taxonomic classification

The taxonomic classification given here conflicts with that in the NCBI taxonomy (see [1] and [2]). Specifically, the Ostreococcus genus is placed in a different, sistering class of Prasinophyceae, Mamiellophyceae, under the same order as specified here Mamiellales (i.e. it looks like the order was moved into a different class). Additionally, the Ostreococcus genus is placed directly underneath this order, sistering the Mamiellaceae family, rather than as a descendent of it.

So the question is, in each case, which source is right? I'll email the NCBI and ask for comment, as the article itself seems to have quite a bit of supporting evidence for the given classification... Ah, looks like the phylogeny section of the Prasinophyceae page clarifies that the class is (or was) paraphyletic. I guess we should just correct the lineage here? --Dan Bolser (talk) 19:06, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Here is the reply from NCBI:

Thanks for bringing the classification of Ostreococcus to our attention. We follow Marin and Melkonian (2010) in placing Ostreococcus and related genera, such as Mamiella, in the newly created class Mamiellophyceae, which corresponds to the clade 'prasinophyte clade 1'. As you state, the Prasinophyceae are highly paraphyletic, and correspond to all of the earlier diverging green algal lineages that exclude the well supported 'higher' chlorophyte classes: Chlorophyceae, Chlorodendrophyceae, Ulvophyceae and Trebouxiophyceae. A complete reclassification of the green algae is on our 'to-do' list, but currently the classification is in a state of considerable chaos. We are hopeful that a better, formal classification will emerge with the completion of the Green Algal Tree of Life.

--Dan Bolser (talk) 09:54, 25 July 2014 (UTC)