Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 19, 2026

Mesostigma

Mesostigma is a genus of unicellular biflagellate freshwater green algae, with a single species Mesostigma viride, covered by an outer layer of basket‐like scales instead of a cell wall. It is the only known genus in the class Mesostigmatophyceae.

Last revised
Jun 19, 2026
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Mesostigma viride
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Clade: Archaeplastida
Clade: Viridiplantae
Division: Charophyta
Class: Mesostigmatophyceae
Order: Mesostigmatales
Marin & Melkonian3
Family: Mesostigmataceae
Marin & Melkonian2
Genus: Mesostigma
Lauterborn1
Species:
M. viride
Binomial name
Mesostigma viride
Lauterborn1

Mesostigma is a genus of unicellular biflagellate freshwater green algae, with a single species Mesostigma viride, covered by an outer layer of basket‐like scales instead of a cell wall.41 It is the only known genus in the class Mesostigmatophyceae5 (and thus, the only genus in the family Mesostigmataceae2 and the order Mesostigmatales3).

Earlier studies were unable to resolve the position of the species, and it was often placed as a sister to all other green algae, as one of the basal members of the Streptophyta, close to Chaetosphaeridium.678 More recent studies agree that Mesostigma and Chlorokybus form a clade, being the earliest diverging of the green plants, specifically within Charophytes.9101112

References

References

  1. Guiry, M.D.; Guiry, G.M. "Mesostigma". AlgaeBase. University of Galway.
  2. Guiry, M.D.; Guiry, G.M. "Mesostigmataceae". AlgaeBase. University of Galway.
  3. Guiry, M.D.; Guiry, G.M. "Mesostigmatales". AlgaeBase. University of Galway.
  4. Liang, Zhe; Geng, Yuke; Ji, Changmian; Du, Hai; Wong, Chui Eng; Zhang, Qian; Zhang, Ye; Zhang, Pingxian; Riaz, Adeel; Chachar, Sadaruddin; Ding, Yike; Wen, Jing; Wu, Yunwen; Wang, Mingcheng; Zheng, Hongkun (2020). "Mesostigma viride Genome and Transcriptome Provide Insights into the Origin and Evolution of Streptophyta". Advanced Science. 7 (1) 1901850. doi:10.1002/advs.201901850. PMC 6947507. PMID 31921561.
  5. Guiry, M.D.; Guiry, G.M. "Mesostigmatophyceae". AlgaeBase. University of Galway.
  6. Marin B, Melkonian M (1999). "Mesostigmatophyceae, a new class of streptophyte green algae revealed by SSU rRNA sequence comparisons". Protist. 150 (4): 399–417. doi:10.1016/S1434-4610(99)70041-6. PMID 10714774.
  7. Jeffrey D. Palmer; Douglas E. Soltis & Mark W. Chase (2004). "The plant tree of life: an overview and some points of view". American Journal of Botany. 91 (10): 1437–45. doi:10.3732/ajb.91.10.1437. PMID 21652302.
  8. Andreas Simon; Gernot Glöckner; Marius Felder; Michael Melkonian & Burkhard Becker (2006). "EST analysis of the scaly green flagellate Mesostigma viride (Streptophyta): Implications for the evolution of green plants (Viridiplantae)". BMC Plant Biology. 6: 2. doi:10.1186/1471-2229-6-2. PMC 1413533. PMID 16476162.
  9. Lemieux C, Otis C, Turmel M (2007). "A clade uniting the green algae Mesostigma viride and Chlorokybus atmophyticus represents the deepest branch of the Streptophyta in chloroplast genome-based phylogenies". BMC Biol. 5: 2. doi:10.1186/1741-7007-5-2. PMC 1781420. PMID 17222354.
  10. Becker, B. & Marin, B. (2009). "Streptophyte algae and the origin of embryophytes". Annals of Botany. 103 (7): 999–1004. doi:10.1093/aob/mcp044. PMC 2707909. PMID 19273476.
  11. Sánchez-Baracaldo, Patricia; Raven, John A.; Pisani, Davide; Knoll, Andrew H. (2017-09-12). "Early photosynthetic eukaryotes inhabited low-salinity habitats". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (37): E7737–E7745. Bibcode:2017PNAS..114E7737S. doi:10.1073/pnas.1620089114. PMC 5603991. PMID 28808007.
  12. Gitzendanner, Matthew A.; Soltis, Pamela S.; Wong, Gane K.-S.; Ruhfel, Brad R.; Soltis, Douglas E. (2018). "Plastid phylogenomic analysis of green plants: A billion years of evolutionary history". American Journal of Botany. 105 (3): 291–301. doi:10.1002/ajb2.1048. ISSN 0002-9122. PMID 29603143.
External links
  • [1] from Algaebase