Lagosinema tenuis gen. et sp. nov. (Prochlorotrichaceae, Cyanobacteria): a new brackish water genus from Tropical Africa

Abstract

A novel filamentous, nonheterocytous cyanobacterium was isolated from Lagos Lagoon, Nigeria. The isolate was <3.0 µm wide, untapered, with small rounded polar bodies (aerotopes or cyanophycin granules) visible at the crosswalls, and consequently fit the morphological description of Limnothrix planctonica. Although morphologically inseparable from that species, it was molecularly distant from that taxon, with genetic identities between the two taxa ranging 90.73-92.49%, a degree of separation typical of different genera. Both taxa, as well as Limnothrix rosea, are phylogenetically in the Prochlorotrichaceae, distant from the type species of Limnothrix, L. redekei, which is in the Pseudanabaenaceae. The isolate is herein described as Lagosinema tenuis gen. et sp. nov.