Sirenicapillaria stauglerae D.E. Berthold, Lefler & Laughinghouse, 2022

Berthold, David E., Lefler, Forrest W. & Laughinghouse, H. Dail, 2022, Recognizing novel cyanobacterial diversity in marine benthic mats, with the description of Sirenicapillariaceae fam. nov., two new genera, Sirenicapillaria gen. nov. and Tigrinifilum gen. nov., and seven new species, Phycologia 61 (2), pp. 146-165 : 148-149

Sirenicapillaria stauglerae D.E. Berthold, Lefler & Laughinghouse sp. nov.

Figs 16–26

DESCRIPTION: Thallus erect, light to dark brown, almost black. Filaments straight and flexuous, 5 cm long, 12.5–33(–35) µm wide with thick hyaline sheath. Trichomes cylindrical, 10–26.8 µm wide, thicker in the centre and gradually attenuated towards apices. Cells slightly constricted at cross walls. Cells discoid, wider than long, 1.0–2.4 µm long. Cell content light to dark brown, grey to red, with pigmentless cells towards apices. Apical cell rounded, at times conical, with occasional calyptra. Reproduction by straight or diagonal trichome fragmentation, hormogonia and necridia. Rarely false branches.

COMMENT: Filament ends usually do not have thick sheaths, while midfilaments usually have thick lamellate hyaline sheaths.

TYPE LOCALITY: USA. Florida: Englewood, seagrass beds within Lemon Bay Aquatic Preserve (26°54.503 ʹ N, 82°20.365 ʹ W) .

HABITAT: Benthic on marine coasts.

ETYMOLOGY: The epithet stauglerae is in honour of Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Staugler for her committed work in studying and surveying coastal marine habitats and the ‘Eyes on Seagrass’ Florida Sea Grant Extension programme, which first noted the emergence of this cyanobacterium blanketing areas that had previously been inhabited by seagrasses.

HOLOTYPE: US 227770 (dried material in a metabolically inactive state of reference strain BLCC-M121 ), deposited in US National Herbarium, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution , Washington, DC, USA.

REFERENCE STRAIN: BLCC-M 121.

MATERIALS ANALYSED: BLCC-M 121, BLCC-M 122, BLCC-M 123, BLCC- M138.

Figures

Figs 16–26. Images of Sirenicapillaria stauglerae (reference strain BLCC-M121). Fig. 16. Thallus. Fig. 17. Microscope image showing filament clumping. Scale bar = 100 µm. Fig. 18. Microscope image showing filament morphological plasticity. Scale bar = 50 µm. Fig. 19. Width and colour difference between filament centre and apex. Scale bar = 100 µm. Fig. 20. Necridia and textured sheath. Scale bar = 50 µm. Fig. 21. Diagonal fragmentation. Scale bar = 50 µm. Fig. 22. Rare false branching. Scale bar = 50 µm. Fig. 23. Filament prior to false branching. Scale bar = 50 µm. Fig. 24. Hormogonia formation. Scale bar = 50 µm. Fig. 25. Calyptra. Scale bar = 50 µm. Fig. 26. Slight conical apical cell shape. Scale bar = 50 µm.