Conclusions and renaming of UWO 241
This study builds upon 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 renamedChlamydomonas 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 strainChlamydomonas priscuii in recognition of John C. Priscu, the
investigator who originally isolated the strain in 1995 (Neale &
Priscu, 1995).