Novel species of parasitic green microalgae Coccomyxa veronica sp. nov. infects Anadara broughtonii from the Sea of Japan.

A new parasitic microalga has been discovered in the commercial bivalve Anadara broughtonii from the Peter the Great Bay of the Sea of Japan. Infected molluscs had an abnormal shell that was more rounded and had a pale orange-green body coloration. Microalgae can be found in all organs of Anadara, depending on the degree of invasion. However, the main places of their localization were the mantle, the hindgut, and the gills, which had the greatest histopathological abnormalities. In haemolymph detection of parasites was extremely rare and only in the amoebocytes. Morphological observations of cultures of this microalga using light and transmission electronic microscopy, and phylogenetic analyses, carried out using 18S rDNA and ITS1 loci, revealed that green alga from Anadara is a new species of the genus Coccomyxa, described here as Coccomyxa veronica sp. nov. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]