Dr. Hisayoshi Nozaki catching a quick nap during the Second International Volvox Meeting in New Brunswick.

University of Tokyo Professor Hisayoshi Nozaki and his colleagues are responsible for describing a large portion of the known diversity of the volvocine algae (see New Volvox species). He described a new species of Astrephomene when he was in high school, leading me to ask him if ‘high school’ meant something different in Japan (it doesn’t). Ironically, since Dr. Nozaki has named numerous species after other people (e.g. Richard Starr, David and Marilyn Kirk, Patrick Ferris, Annette Coleman…), there are, to my knowledge, no species named after him!

Until now, that is: a new paper by Takashi Nakada and Masaru Tomita in the Journal of Phycology introduces Hapalochloris nozakii. This is not just a new species but a new genus, and the bonus is the abbreviated form: H. nozakii.

Figure 1 A & B from Nakada and Tomita 2016. FIG. 1. Light microscopy of Hapalochloris nozakii Nakada gen. et sp. nov. Cells in 7-d-old cultures. Asterisks indicate the anterior direction of the cells. A. Optical section of vegetative cells. B. Surface view of a vegetative cell, showing spirally furrowed chloroplast. cv, contractile vacuole; e, stigma; f, flagellum; n, nucleus; p, pyrenoid. Scale bars = 10 μm.

From the formal description:

Etymology. The specific epithet nozakii is after Dr. Hisayoshi Nozaki (University of Tokyo), who has contributed broadly to phycological research, especially the taxonomy of colonial volvocalean flagellates.

Stable Links:

Isaka N, Kawai-Toyooka H, Matsuzaki R, Nakada T and Nozaki H 2012. Description of two new monoecious species of Volvox sect. Volvox (Volvocaceae, Chlorophyceae), based on comparative morphology and molecular phylogeny of cultured material. Journal of Phycology 48:759–67.

Nakada T and Tomita M 2016. Morphology and phylogeny of a new wall-less freshwater volvocalean flagellate, Hapalochloris nozakii gen. et sp. nov. (Volvocales, Chlorophyceae). In press, Journal of Phycology.

Nozaki H 1983. Morphology and taxonomy of two species of Astrephomene in Japan. Japanese Journal of Phycology 58:345–52. [best link I could find]

Nozaki H, Ott F D and Coleman A W 2006. Morphology, molecular phylogeny and taxonomy of two new species of Pleodorina (Volvocaceae, Chlorophyceae) Journal of Phycology 42:1072–80.

Nozaki H, Yamada T K, Takahashi F, Matsuzaki R and Nakada T 2014. New “missing link” genus of the colonial volvocine green algae gives insights into the evolution of oogamy. BMC Evolutionary Biology 14:37.