Work

A New Species of Colorless Flagellates, Thaumatomonas sibirica sp. n. (Thaumatomonadida, Protista) According to Ultrastructural Data and Molecular Phylogeny

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Thaumatomonads are common in soil and fresh water and play an important role in microbial communities. They use silicon for the intracellular synthesis of species-specific silica-scales that cover the surface of their cells. Their diversity is not well studied, and the combination of electron microscopy and molecular phylogeny of marker genes allowed the discovery of a new taxon. In this work, we established the Thaumatomonas strain IW08m from the Irkutsk Reservoir Bay (Eastern Siberia, Russia) into a monoculture and, using various microscopy methods, described its cell structure, including the stage of silica-scale formation. Based on combined data from the fine structure of the scales and phylogenetic analysis of the 18S rRNA gene, we showed congruence of morphological differences and genetic distances in the genus Thaumatomonas and described a new species, Thaumatomonas sibirica n. sp., and thus expanded our understanding of the diversity of thaumatomonads.

Source: Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology

DOI: 10.1111/jeu.70067

Authors: Anna Yu. Bessudova, Andrey I. Tanichev, Yekaterina D. Bedoshvili, Darya P. Petrova, Artyom M. Marchenkov, Yelena V. Likhoshway

Institutions: Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Limnological Institute

Language: English

Topic: Protist diversity and phylogeny

Subfield: Molecular Biology

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: bronze