Fig. 1

Growth status of Phaeocystis globosa. (a) Growth curve of solitary cells; (b) growth curve of colonies; (c) relationship between colonial diameter and culture time; (d) correlation between the number of colonial cells and diameter"

Fig. 2

Solitary cell morphology of Phaeocystis globosa Beibu Gulf strain. (a) Solitary cell with single flagellum; (b) solitary cell with two flagella; (c) dividing cell"

Fig. 3

Colonial cells morphology of Phaeocystis globosa Beibu Gulf strain. (a) Larger colony; (b) newly formed small colony; (c) polarized colony; (d) colony with internal cells escape; (e) cell aggregate without colonial boundaries; (f) cells with flagella in the aggregate"

Fig. 4

Solitary cell morphology of Phaeocystis globosa Beibu Gulf strain under scanning electron microscopy. (a) and (b) Solitary cell with flagella and haptonema; (c) solitary cell with concave shape and no flagella; (d) solitary cell with two short flagella protrusions"

Fig. 5

Changes in differential gene expression levels in different cells of Phaeocystis globosa. (a) Statistical diagram of the number of differentially expressed genes between colonial cells and solitary cells, with screening conditions of Padjust ≤ 0.05 and | log2FC | ≥ 1; (b) volcano map of differentially expressed genes between colonial and solitary cells, showing the degree of gene expression differences between different samples. The FC in log2FC is fold change, which represents the ratio of expression between two samples (groups), and is log2FC after taking the logarithm with 2 as the base, additionally the negative logarithm of the P-value (-Log10(P-value)) was used to indicate the significance of the P-value; Red indicates upregulation of genes, while blue indicates downregulation of genes"

Fig. 6

Functional annotation and enrichment pathway analysis of the differential gene KEGG between the colonial and solitary cells of Phaeocystis globosa. (a) Function annotation diagram of differentially expressed genes between the colonial and solitary cells; (b) KEGG enrichment pathway diagram of differentially expressed genes in the colonial and solitary cells (top 20)"