New Records of Two Arcuospathidium Subspecies (Ciliophora: Haptoria: Arcuospathidiidae) from Korea

Abstract

Arcuospathidium is a haptorian ciliate genus composed of 18 species, and only one species has been reported in Korea. Here, we identify two unrecorded Arcuospathidium subspecies by morphological observation of both living and protargol-impregnated specimens with the small subunit ribosomal RNA (18S rRNA) gene sequence. These subspecies, Arcuospathidium cultriforme cultriforme (Penard, 1922) Foissner, 1984 and A. cultriforme scalpriforme (Kahl, 1930) Foissner, 2003, were isolated from various terrestrial habitats in July and August 2013, respectivley. Arcuospathidium cultriforme cultriforme is similar to A. cultriforme scalpriforme by a knife-shaped body, a twisted shaped macronucleus, number of dorsal brushes, position of dorsal brushes, and shape of macronucleus but former mainly differs from the body length to oral bulge length ratio (27-38% vs. 41-53%), extrusome (one types vs. three types), cyst shape (roughly faceted wall vs. smooth surface and thin wall) and number of somatic kinety rows(18-30 vs. 30-44). Additionally, we analyzed the 18S rRNA gene sequences of two A. cultriforme subspecies and compared them with the sequences from GenBank to confirm their identification at the molecular level. As the results of genetic analysis, the 18S rRNA gene sequence of the Korean A. cultriforme cultriforme population is most similar to that of Austrian population. Also, the sequence of the Korean A. cultriforme scalpriforme population is most similar to that of another population with some nucleotide differences.