• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.178-185
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• 2007

Myrionecta rubra Jankowski 1976(=Mesodinium rubrum Lohmann 1908), a mixotrophic ciliate, is very common and often causes recurrent red tides in diverse marine environments. Since the report on the first laboratory strain of this species in 2000, papers on its novel ecological role and evolutionary importance have been high lighted. This review paper is prepared to promote the de novo recognition M. rubra as a marine mixotrophic species. M. rubra is a ciliate which is able to photosynthesize using plastids originated from cryptophyte (including Teleaulax sp. and Geminigera sp.) prey cells (i.e. kleptoplastidic ciliate). Recently, novel bacterivory of M. rubra was firstly reported. Thus, the nutritional modes of M. rubra include photosynthesis, bacterivory, and algivory. In turn, M. rubra was reported as the prey species of metazoan predators such as calanoid copepods, mysids, larvae of ctenophore and anchovy, and spats of bivalves. In addition, it was reported that dinoflagellate Dinophysis causing diarrhetic shellfish poisoning is one among the predators of M. rubra. Thus, M. rubra, a marine mixotrophic ciliate, may play a pivotal role as a common linking ciliate for the flow of energy and organic material in pelagic food webs.