The International Society of Protistologists and The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology conferred the 2017 William Trager Award on: Kensuto Seto, Maiko Kagami, and Yosuke Degawa, for publishing the most cited article of 2017 entitled: “Phylogenetic Position of Parasitic Chytrids on Diatoms: Characterization of a Novel Clade in Chytridiomycota” (JEM 64(3):383-393, 2017).
The study by Seto et al. described five parasitic chytrids of diatoms Aulacoseira spp. and Asterionella formosa. In order to identify the chytrids they conducted morphological and phylogenetic analyses. Based on their morphological characteristics, two parasitic chytrids of As. formosa were identified as Rhizophydium planktonicum and Zygorhizidium planktonicum. The other three parasitic chytrids infecting Aulacoseira spp. (two infecting Aulacoseira ambigua and the other infecting Aulacoseira granulata) were regarded as Zygorhizidium aff. melosirae. The results of the molecular phylogenetic analysis revealed that R. planktonicum belonged to the known order Chytridiales, while the two species of Zygorhizidium were placed in a novel clade that was previously reported as an undescribed clade composed of only the environmental sequences of uncultured chytrids.
To honour his distinguished career in protozoology and his leadership role in establishing The Journal of Protozoology, the Society of Protozoologists established in 1998 the William Trager Award for Outstanding Paper of the Year. This award is given to the most cited original article published in the journal in the previous two years and consists of a Diploma and a $100.00 check to the first author of the article.