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The nucleariids, or nucleariid amoebae, are a group of amoebae that comprise the sister clade of the fungi. Together, they form the clade Holomycota. They are aquatic organisms found in freshwater and marine habitats, as well as in faeces. They are free-living predators that mostly consume algae and bacteria.
Nucleariids are characterized by simple, spherical or flattened single-celled bodies with filopodia (fine, thread-like ), covered by a mucous coat. They lack flagella and . Inside the cytoplasm of some species are endosymbiotic proteobacteria. Some species are naked, with only the mucous coat as cover, while others (known as 'scaled' nucleariids) have silica-based or exogenous particles of various shapes.
An exceptional nucleariid, Fonticula alba, develops multicellular fruiting bodies () for spore dispersal. It is one of several cases of independently evolved multicellularity within Opisthokonta, the clade that houses both Holozoa (which includes ) and Holomycota.
Initially, nucleariids were grouped with other filose amoebae (i.e., with filopodia) based on their superficial similarity. Silica-scaled and naked nucleariids were classified into separate families from one another, Pompholyxophryidae and Nucleariidae, respectively. Due to its nature as a slime mold, the genus Fonticula has also been classified separatedly, particularly with and other slime molds. With advancements in electron microscopy and molecular phylogenetics, the three groups were revealed to belong to the same clade as sister to the fungi. Due to lack of molecular data, the three groups are treated as one family, under the name of Nucleariidae.
Various conflicting systems of above-family classification exist for nucleariids, with older systems grouping them as a class Cristidiscoidea composed of two orders: one for Fonticula and another for the remaining species. regard them as an independent kingdom of life, Nucleariae, with two phylum that mirror those two orders. They are generally accepted by as a single order Rotosphaerida, which is the oldest taxonomic name for these organisms.
Most nucleariids have some kind of mucous coat, with or without coverings. The coverings can be made with endogenous silica-based particles (known as idiosomes) or with exogenous particles (known as xenosomes). These particles are developed into hollow siliceous scales or spines. The mucous coat itself—sometimes called glycocalyx—is enigmatic, as it can be present or absent in the same organism depending on the conditions. It appears to be made of one or two layers fibrous material running parallel to the cell membrane, and it often houses bacterial ectosymbionts. Surrounding the cell periphery, the characteristic hyaline (i.e., transparent) filopodia are found, originating from any point of the cell surface, sometimes branching or tapering but are never stiff or Anastomosis (fusing with one another). Unlike Heliozoa, these filopodia are not supported by microtubules and do not contain extrusomes.
Most species develop a microbial cyst during their life cycle consisting of a smooth spherical cell covered by one or more thick layers of a translucent material.
Nucleariids are free-living phagotrophy, and preferably consume cyanobacteria and other algae. Small-celled species like those of Parvularia and Fonticula feed on small bacteria, while larger cells such as Nuclearia, Pompholyxophrys and Lithocolla can also feed on detritus and unicellular eukaryotic algae (e.g., ). All of them are slow-paced grazers that probably grow in response to the availability of their food sources, such as after .
Nucleariids are unique within their greater evolutionary context. (relatives of opisthokonts), holozoans and fungi all evolved from ancestors that were single-celled . Opisthokonts, in particular, are characterized by a single posterior flagellum. Even the most basal-branching fungi (, and microsporidia) are single-celled flagellates that prey on other eukaryotes. The last common ancestor of nucleariids, however, had lost the opisthokont flagellum and its cell polarity, and had gained the characteristic mucous coat. The presence of filopodia is more common among opisthokonts, shared with aphelids and most holozoans.
Protozoologists John P. Cann and Frederick C. Page established the family Nucleariidae to include the naked genera Nuclearia, Gobiella and Nucleosphaerium (later synonymized with Nuclearia). Through studies of their fine cellular ultrastructure via transmission electron microscopy, the order Cristidiscoidida was established within the class Filosea, to accommodate both families Nucleariidae and the silica-scaled Pompholyxophryidae (e.g., Pompholyxophrys, Pinaciophora and Rhabdiophrys), because they all shared disc-shaped crista as a synapomorphy (i.e., they were discicristate).
The genus Fonticula was continually excluded, as it was considered an Acrasidae or a slime mold, until 1993, when protozoologist Thomas Cavalier-Smith created the subclass Cristidiscoidia to house two orders: Nucleariida (with Nucleariidae and Pompholyxophryidae) and Fonticulida (with Fonticulidae). However, he later considered scaled nucleariids (Pompholyxophryidae) as members of the Cercozoa, completely separate from naked ones, but this is no longer accepted. In a 1999 taxonomic revision by Kirill A. Mikrjukov, Cristidiscoidida was regarded as a junior synonym of Rotosphaerida, which finally united all discicristate filose amoebae. He also included Belonocystis and Micronuclearia in this order, which now are known to belong to Amoebozoa and CRuMs, respectively.
At present, different conflicting classifications for nucleariids remain in use depending on the authors. Cavalier-Smith maintained his system through the years, using the name Cristidiscoidea as a class of his paraphyletic phylum Choanozoa, which included all protists most closely related to and fungi. have proposed a separate kingdom Nucleariae with lower ranks for Cavalier-Smith's two orders (phylum Nuclearida and Fonticulida, classes Nuclearidea and Fonticulidea), but without specifying their taxonomic composition. Generally, protistologists prefer using the order Rotosphaerida instead, as it has priority over more recent names. Most studies using the name Cristidiscoidea have only included Nuclearia or environmental sequences, while those using Rotosphaerida have been used when studying the scale-bearing amoebae and, more recently, the naked ones as well.
At the family-level rank, although historically both Nucleariidae and Pompholyxophryidae have been used separately for naked and scale-bearing nucleariids respectively, and Fonticulidae solely for Fonticula, protistologists tend to use only Nucleariidae now, as there is no clear evolutionary separation between the three families.
The following are genera regarded as possibly belonging to this order:
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