New simple trichal cyanobacterial taxa isolated from radioactive thermal springs

Abstract

There are several places in the world where the level of natural radiation is unusually high, such as some regions of Ramsar and Abegarm-e-Mahallat in Iran. Such places are still insufficiently explored in terms of their biodiversity. In this study, strains isolated from six geothermal springs with elevated natural radiation were investigated. The highest concentration of 226Ra were 13,000 Bq.kg-1 in the soil and 130 Bq.l-1 in water respectively. The morphological and molecular analyses revealed, that the strains are not classifiable to any existing taxon. Therefore, they are described as new taxa for science. Based on results of our study, two earlier described species are transferred into newly established genus.