Kaszab Zoltán (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 70. (Budapest 1978)

P. Komáromy, Zs.: Scotiella species (Chlorophyceae) and their theoretical life-cycle

ing to SENN (191 l)and GEITLER (1923) the orange red haematochrom is a food reserve and consequently isaccumulated in the cells in well-lighted situations. STEINECKE (1923) observed, that the frequent yellow colouration of Chlorophyceae in moorland pools is due to the abundant development of carotins in the chloroplasts as a result of nitrogen deficiency. Moreover, other unfavourable conditions such as low or high temperature or strong-lighted situation may cause the same colouration. Accordingly, the abundant presence of Carotinoid substances and oil dropplets in the Scotiella cells may be the consequence of nitrogen deficiency (e.g. on snow), as well as reserve substances or the result of chloroplast decay at different temperatures. FRITSCH (1911) referring to WILLE'S description, pointed out that the Scotiella nivalis may exhibit different pigments in different localities. It appears on Table 1, that all Scotiella species occurring on snow have coloured oil while the soil inhabiting species have uncoloured oil globules or some of them has none. So, the colour of cell content is due to a phenological stage and not a characteristic of the species. The third important feature referring to the desorganizational stage is visible in most pictures of these species, that is, the granular protoplasm is found in the middle of the cell, like to plasmolysis (Plate I : Figs. 1, 3,4,6). Summarizing the above mentioned phenomena (irregularly shaped chloroplasts, coloured or uncoloured oil dropplets, granulated protoplast in the middle of the cell and presence of vacuoles) are known as the characteristics of aged cells and those which through a partial desorganization go to resting stage. I suppose that some Scotiella species were described on the basis of morphological features of the resting stage, and in the earlier botanical literature the real vegetative stage of these species was unknown. Here it is important to cite GEITLER (1964) the first who definitely stated that the Scotiella tuberculata var. verrucosa and Sc. spinosa (described by him) were in "Dauerzellzustand" (Plate I: Figs. 8, 9) and he supposed that they grow and multiply in melting snow and ice luxuriantly (I.e. p. 171). If we make the matrices of the main characteristics of the Scotiella species on the basis of Table 1, we can examine the similarities and dissimilarities among the species. L Table 2. The matrix of shape of the Scotiella species based on the — rate 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 2 1 3 1 1 4 1 1 1 5 1 1 1 1 6 1 I 1 I 1 7 1 0 1 0 0 1 8 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 13 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 I I f 0 0 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 15 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 17 I 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 19 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 According to Table 2, the different Scotiella species are similar to each other by their shape, L making a comparison on the basis of the length and width ratio (—in Table 1). We can see, that W Sc. polyptera var. magellanica (owing to its pear-like shape) is different from the other Scotiella species. Sc. cryophyla and Sc. nivalis morphologically are similar to the other Scotiella species. The majority of the Scotiella species are different from each other owing to their shape. Table 3 exhibits that on the basis of cell dimension we can distinguish the different Scotiella species from each other. I established three categories in length and in width of the cells (see in Table 1, note). According to Table 3, the Sc. cryophyla var. groenlandica, Sc. nivalis and Sc. nivalis var. nipponica have average dimensions, so they are quite similar to the other Scotiella species. Sc. nivalis var. call-