Taxonomic re-evaluation of Ericiolus and Mercedesia (Prymnesiophyceae) and description of three new species

This dataset contains the digitized treatments in Plazi based on the original journal article Archontikis, Odysseas A., Millán, Josué G., Winter, Amos, Young, Jeremy R. (2023): Taxonomic re-evaluation of Ericiolus and Mercedesia (Prymnesiophyceae) and description of three new species. Phycologia 62 (2): 179-193, DOI: 10.1080/00318884.2023.2172841, URL: doi.org/10.1080/00318884.2023.2172841 ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Received 22 September 2022 Accepted 23 January 2023 Published online 14 March 2023 The genera Ericiolus and Mercedesia are distinctive extant coccolithophores that are characterized by monothecate, monomorphic coccospheres with one type of triradiate star-shaped nannoliths.

The two genera were described from the Danish coastal waters, the surface waters of the Arctic, and the Southern Oceans. During a study of samples from the low photic zone of the Mediterranean and Sargasso Seas, and from the subtropical gyres of the South-eastern Pacific and the South Atlantic Oceans, 44 collapsed coccospheres with triradiate star-like nannoliths were observed via scanning electron microscopy. Observations on the morphologies and biometric assessments of these specimens revealed that three distinct sets of nannoliths can be distinguished and that these were morphologically differentiated from all currently known species of Ericiolus and Mercedesia.