1 2 DR. MAREN PREUSS (Orcid ID : 0000-0002-8147-5643) 3 DR. HEROEN VERBRUGGEN (Orcid ID : 0000-0002-6305-4749) 4 DR. GIUSEPPE C. ZUCCARELLO (Orcid ID : 0000-0003-0028-7227) 5 6 7 Article type : Regular Article 8 9 10 The organelle genomes in the photosynthetic red algal parasite Pterocladiophila 11 hemisphaerica (Florideophyceae, Rhodophyta) have elevated substitution rates and 12 extreme gene loss in the plastid genome 1 13 14 15 Maren Preuss2 16 School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, 17 6140, New Zealand 18 19 Heroen Verbruggen 20 School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia 21 and 22 Giuseppe C. Zuccarello 23 School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, 24 6140, New Zealand 25 26 27 Author Manuscript 28 Running title: Pterocladiophila organelle genomes 29 This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1111/JPY.12996-20-002 This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved 30 1 Received Accepted ___________ 31 2 Corresponding author:
[email protected] 32 33 34 Editorial Responsibility: M. Coleman (Associate Editor) 35 36 37 ABSTRACT 38 Comparative organelle genome studies of parasites can highlight genetic changes that occur 39 during the transition from a free-living to a parasitic state. Our study focuses on a poorly 40 studied group of red algal parasites, which are often closely related to their red algal hosts and 41 from which they presumably evolved.