Cymbella marvanii sp. nov., a new Cymbella species from the French Pyrenees

Abstract

A recent survey of the benthic diatoms in Pyrenean lakes led to the discovery of a species of Cymbella new to science. With light microscopy, Cymbella marvanii looks like a Cymbopleura species. With scanning electron microscopy, the observations show the presence of stigmata, a distinctive feature of the genus Cymbella. The proposed new species is compared with similar taxa belonging to Cymbella, Cymbopleura and Encyonema. In particular, the new species is compared with Cymbella saxicola Bily & Marvan, for which SEM photographs are given for the first time. The new species was found in ultra-oligotrophic waters, associated with virtually no biomass in the water column.

Keywords:

• Pyrenees
• Cymbellaceae
• Cymbella
• new species
• morphology

Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful to P. Marvan for his help with the slide of Cymbella saxicola. We are also thankful to Friedel Hinz for providing photos of Cymbella saxicola from Krammer's collection and to Luc Ector for bibliographic help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.