Phylogeny, morphology, and ultrastructure of sessilid peritrich ciliates in termite guts, Termitophrya africana and Doliophrys denislynni gen. nov., sp. nov.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Sessilids (Oligohymenophorea, Peritrichia, Sessilida) reportedly colonize the gut of certain “higher termites” (family Termitidae), but only a single species, Termitophrya africana from Jugositermes tuberculatus (subfamily Apicotermitinae), has been described based on a drawing. Similar ciliates were observed in other Apicotermitinae but remained unspecified . Our SSU rDNA-based survey of peritrich ciliates in a broad range of Termitidae recovered distinct phylotypes from several Apicotermitinae ( Astalotermes , Jugositermes , and Phoxotermes ), albeit only from samples collected in Cameroon and not from all species of these genera. They form a monophyletic group in the family Epistylididae (Sessilida), with Orborhabdostyla bromelicola as the closest relative. Light, scanning, and transmission electron microscopy of the sessilid ciliates in J. tuberculatus revealed two morphotypes, which were assigned to their corresponding phylotypes by sequence analysis of capillary-picked single cells. One morphotype, which is highly contractile and broadens continuously towards the posterior end, matches the description of Termitophrya africana . The cells are attached by a posterior scopula with short cilia and are often covered with rod-shaped ectobionts. The other morphotype has a stockier, barrel-shaped body and a short, clearly demarcated anterior end and is always free of ectobionts. We designate it as Doliophrys denislynni gen. Nov., sp. nov. • The sessile gut ciliates in higher termites belong to the family Epistylididae (Peritrichia). • They exclusively occur in Apicotermitinae. • One phylotype was linked to the previously described Termitophrya africana . • The second phylotype represents a new species, Doliophrys dennislynni . • Morphology and ultrastructure of both species are studied in detail.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".