Chattonella is a genus of the marine class raphidophytes associated with red tides and can be found in the phylum Heterokontophyta in stramenopiles.
[3] C. minima has an identical morphological structure to C. antiqua, so researchers are developing ways to search for the gene responsible for differentiating between the different Chattonella strains.
Three of these species, C. antiqua, C. marina, and C. ovata, contribute the growing problem of harmful algal blooms (HAB).
[1] C. verruculosa was originally categorized with these toxic species, but further phylogenetic analysis showed it actually belonged to class Dictyochophyceae, not Raphidophyceae.
[4] They sequence ITS rDNA and rRNA, and mitochondrial DNA of the species to try to target the highly variable regions with molecular markers.