Monday, November 25, 2019 through Friday, November 29, 2019

Monday, December 16, 2019 through Friday, December 27, 2019

LOCATION:  Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences Research and Education campus in East Boothbay, ME

FOR:  Graduate students, faculty members, industry aqua culturists, biotech professionals, algae novices, “algae-preneurs”, and experts.

COST:  Course fee is $3,500 per person and includes tuition, materials, lodging, and meals (continental breakfast and lunch).

Please click here  for more information

Each kit contains five (5) test tubes and the cost is as follows:

Cost Per Pack            Amount of Packs Ordered

$20.00                        1 to 5

$17.50                        6 to 10

$15.00                       11 and above

Kindly e-mail NCMA@bigelow.org if you are interested in purchasing the kit.

A)     From a water sample collected off the Bigelow Laboratory Dock, East Boothbay , Maine USA

B)     Collected and isolated by Julia Park 30Sep2016  

C)      Identified by Pete Countway and Carm Tomas

CCMP3496 Ostreopsis ovata_cf.   

A)     From a water sample collected from Bahia de Abra, Madeira Island, Portugal

B)     Collected by Santiago Fraga on October 11,2002 and isolated by Santiago Fraga   

C)     Identified by gene sequencing  (GenBank codes: ITS-FM244642; LSU-FM994897)

New Publication featuring NCMA strains

Robert A. Andersen, Director Emeritus of NCMA, has recently co-authored a publication which has added new insights to the phylogenetic relationships of the genus Ochromonas and relationships of the genus Ochromonas with other chrysophyte algae.

Phycologia Volume 56 (6), 591–604 Published 14 July 2017

Rediscovery of the Ochromonas type species Ochromonas triangulata

(Chrysophyceae) from its type locality (Lake Veysove, Donetsk region, Ukraine)

Robert A. Andersen, Louis Graf, Yuriy Malakhov and Hwan Su Yoon

ABSTRACT: Ochromonas triangulata, the type species for a genus with over 125 taxa, was collected for only the second time, again from the type locality. Cell morphology, cell division, palmelloid stage and cyst structure generally agreed with the original description. Molecular phylogenetic analysis based on the 18S rRNA gene revealed 13 clades of Ochromonas-like flagellates as well as the clade represented by our O. triangulata strain and the nearly identical strain RCC-21/AC025. We also conducted a concatenated analysis using the 18S rRNA and the rbcL genes, and we recovered the same 14 clades. One clade, containing strains CCAP 933/27 and CCMP1861, previously named Ochromonas tuberculata, was re-identified as Chrysastrella paradoxa and Chrysastrella breviappendiculata, respectively. One clade included the Poterioochromonas strains but we were unable to convincingly connect species names to the strains because authentic strains were unknown or not examined. Organisms in the clade that included the well-known Ochromonas danica were assigned to Chlorochromonas. The generic name Melkoniania gen. nov. was proposed for one distinct clade of marine flagellates. These changes addressed some of the issues associated with the polyphyletic Ochromonas sensu lato but many problems remained.

http://www.phycologia.org/doi/abs/10.2216/17-15.1?code=iphy-site

Article Citation:

Robert A. Andersen, Louis Graf, Yuriy Malakhov, and Hwan Su Yoon (2017) Rediscovery of the Ochromonas type species Ochromonas triangulata (Chrysophyceae) from its type locality (Lake Veysove, Donetsk region, Ukraine). Phycologia: November 2017, Vol. 56, No. 6, pp. 591-604

IN MEMORIAM ROBERT R. L. GUILLARD (5 February 1921–25 September 2016) by William G. Sunda Department of Marine Sciences University of North Carolina 292 Old Piedmont Circle Chapel Hill, NC 27516, USA williamg.sunda@gmail.com. Phycologia Volume 56 (3), 354–358 Published 10 March 2017

Please click here for the article.

CCMP3460 Tsunamia transpacifica (image courtesy of John West)

CCMP3466 ​Gambierdiscus toxicus

The following are axenic, and two of the three are grown up from single cells. 

Please contact NCMA@bigelow.org for more information.

Why is the genus and/or species name of a strain that I ordered before now different?

From time to time, you may see different scientific names (or species identifications) for strains that you may routinely order. This can be because the strain :

a. the strain had been mis-identified

or

b. due to more efficient DNA sequencing and better computers to analyze the data, and due to a better understanding of algal phylogenetics, new algal species are being described, and old groupings are being reanalyzed. The result can be that a strain which has long been in culture has a new scientific name because, taxonomically speaking, it fits into the grouping of a newly descriped genus or species.

Regardless, though scientific names may change, the strains themselves and the original CCMP strain number do not.

Some examples are:

Nannochloropsis salina and Nannochloropsis gaditana have been assigned to the new genus, Microchloropsis (Fawley, Marvin W., Ian Jameson, and Karen P. Fawley. "The phylogeny of the genus Nannochloropsis (Monodopsidaceae, Eustigmatophyceae), with descriptions of N. australis sp. nov. and Microchloropsis gen. nov." Phycologia 54.5 (2015): 545-552.) as Microchloropsis salina and M. gaditana.

CCMP1332 and CCMP2092 formerly, Skeletonema costatum, have been assigned to the Skeletonema species marinoi (CCMP1332 in publication in Protist 159.2 (2008): 177-193) and CCMP2092 identified by Sarno, private communication, 2011).

CCMP1324 and CCMP463, Isochrysis sp. have been assigned to a new genus, Tisochrysis, and have had their species epithet defined as, lutea (Bendif, El Mahdi, et al. "On the description of Tisochrysis lutea gen. nov. sp. nov. and Isochrysis nuda sp. nov. in the Isochrysidales, and the transfer of Dicrateria to the Prymnesiales (Haptophyta)." Journal of applied phycology 25.6 (2013): 1763-1776.).

Bolidomonas pacifica has been assigned to the genus Triparma as Triparma pacifica (Ichinomiya, Mutsuo, et al. "Diversity and oceanic distribution of the Parmales (Bolidophyceae), a picoplanktonic group closely related to diatoms." The ISME journal (2016).)

Lotharella amoeboformis (our strain CCMP2058) has been assigned to the genus Amorphochlora as Amorphochlora amoeboformis (Ishida, Ken-ichiro, Akinori Yabuki, and Shuhei Ota. "Research note: Amorphochlora amoebiformis gen. et comb. nov.(Chlorarachniophyceae)." Phycological Research 59.1 (2011): 52-53 ).

• New Year's Day (January 1)
• Martin Luther King Day (third Monday in January)
• Washington's Birthday (third Monday in February)
• Patriot's Day (third Monday in April)
• Memorial Day (last Monday in May)
• Independence Day (July 4)
• Labor Day (first Monday in September)
• Veterans' Day (November 11)
• Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday in November)
• Day after Thanksgiving (fourth Friday in November)
• December 24
• December 25

A recognized holiday that falls on a Saturday will be observed on the preceding Friday.  A recognized holiday that falls on a Sunday will be observed on the following Monday.

Please note that we do not ship orders on the above holidays. Kindly contact NCMA@bigelow.org if you have any questions.

The Provasoli-Guillard National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota (NCMA) has modified the format of its annual culture techniques course for 2017 in response to feedback from prior students.  Rather than a single course, we have broken the course into two shorter workshops.  The first is “Basic Culturing Skills and Techniques” and will be offered from May 14-16^th, 2017.  The second is “Mass Culturing for Algal Biotechnology” and will be offered from May 17-19^th, 2017.  Both workshops will be held at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences Research and Education campus in East Boothbay, Maine.  While the workshops are designed to be complementary, it is not a requirement that students take both workshops.

Please click here for more information