Printed in Great Britain THE MORPHOLOGY OF GREEN HYDRA ENDOSYMBIONTS AS INFLUENCED BY HOST STRAIN AND HOST ENVIRONMENT

The infrastructure of Chlorella-like algal endosymbionte from the Florida and English strains of green hydra was compared under different host feeding and photoperiodic regimes. Under standard conditions (host fed daily, 12-h photoperiod) the algae from the 2 strains exhibited considerable differences. The English symbionts had a pyrenoid, compact chloroplast membranes and vesiculated polyphosphate bodies. By comparison, Florida symbionts lacked a pyrenoid, had chloroplasts with less compact membranes and exhibited spherical polyphosphate bodies. When maintained in the dark, algae from English hydra lost their pyrenoids, showed great compaction of the chloroplast and developed large, shield-shaped, electron-dense bodies. In contrast, algae from Florida hosts did not exhibit gross ultrastructural modification. Reciprocal cross-transfers of symbionts were made by placing Florida algae in English aposymbiotic (algal-free) hosts and vice versa. After residence in Florida hosts, English sym-bionts appeared to undergo ultrastructural modifications resulting in a morphology indis-tinguishable from the native Florida symbionts. Florida algae showed no modifications resulting from residence in English hosts. It thus appears that the English symbiont has great morpho-logical plasticity, as its structure is greatly modified depending upon the host in which it resides and the conditions under which the host is maintained. The results of these studies are discussed and compared with published accounts of free-living Chlorella and with reports dealing with other Chlorella symbionts