Prokaryotic, chlorophyll b containing picoplankton are very abundant in the north Pacific and Atlantic oceans. These organisms have been hypothesized to be descendants of the free-living organisms that are ancestors of the chloroplast of the higher plants (green algae, charaophytes, mosses, and vascular plants). However, the PIs have detected an unusual chlorophyll molecule that does not correspond to the chlorophylls of modern chloroplasts of the higher plants. The PIs propose to collect, isolate, culture, and analyze these organisms for the purposes of completing a phylogenetic analysis. Phylogeny will be determined using 16s rRNA genes and compare them with prokaryotic and eukaryotic taxa using parsimony analysis.
