The International Society of Protistologists and The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology conferred the 2019 William Trager Award on: Allison M. Lewis, Andrea N. Chan, and Todd C. LaJeunesse, for publishing the most cited article of 2019 entitled: “New species of closely related endosymbiotic dinoflagellates in the greater Caribbean have niches corresponding to host coral phylogeny” (JEM 66(3):460-482, 2019).
The study by Lewis et al. investigated the presence of different species of symbiotic dinoflagellates in the genus Breviolum (formerly Symbodinium Clade B) in coral communities in shallow waters across the Greater Caribbean. They classified and formally named Breviolum faviinorum n. sp., primarily associated with Caribbean corals belonging to the Caribbean subfamily Faviinae; B. meandrinium n. sp., associated with corals belonging to the family Meandrinidae; and B. dendrogyrum n. sp., a symbiont harbored exclusively by the threatened coral Dendrogyra cylindrus. The findings support the primary importance of niche diversification in the speciation of symbiotic dinoflagellates.
About the William Trager Award
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.