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Cosmopolitan Distribution Of The Large Composite Microbial Mat Spirochete, Spirosymplokos Deltaeiberi, Lynn Margulis, Antoni Navarrete, Mónica Solé

Lynn Margulis (1938 - 2011)

Inocula from organic-rich black muds immediately underlying intertidal laminated microbial mats dominated by Microcoleus chthonoplastes yielded large, variable diameter spirochetes. These unusual spirochetes, previously reported only from the Alfacs Peninsula at the delta of the Ebro river in northeast Spain, contain striking arrays of cytoplasmic granules packed into their protoplasmic cylinders. On several occasions, both in summer and winter, the huge spirochetes were recognized in samples from mats growing in the Sippewissett salt marsh at Woods Hole Massachusetts. They were also seen in similar samples from microbial mats at North Pond, Laguna Figueroa, Baja California Norte, Mexico. The identity of …