Acritarchs and prasinophyceans belonging to eleven genera have been found in the Upper Ordovician (Ashgill) deposits from Zalesie Nowe (Holy Cross Mountains, southern Poland). They are the first representatives of organic-walled plankton described thus far from the uppermost Ordovician/lowermost Silurian strata in the southern part of the Holy Cross Mountains.
Mass occurrence of mats comprised of benthic coccoid cyanobacteria is reported from early Silurian black radiolarian cherts exposed at Żdanow village (Bardzkie Mountains, Sudetes, southwestern Poland). The cherts contain laminated organic matter representing degraded benthic coccoid cyanobacterial mats. The remains of cyanobacteria occur as laminated agglomerations of variously preserved subglobular colonies composed of spherical cells of variable size and numbers. The morphology of remnants of cells and their mucilaginous envelopes, structure of colonies, and particularly the presence of small granular structures resembling reproductive cells known in extant coccoid cyanobacteria as baeocytes, permit to compare the Silurian microbiota with modern cyanobacteria assigned to the genera Stanieria or Chroococcidiopsis.
We present discoveries of internal bodies in problematic Silurian and Devonian organic−walled microfossils classified traditionally as polygonomorph, acanthomorph, sphaeromorph, and herkomorph acritarchs. These bodies are comparable with reproductive structures (autoand/or aplanospores) of modern unicellular green algae (Chlorococcales). Our findings suggest that many of these microfossils may represent asexually reproducing (sporulating) vegetative cells of chlorococcalean algae. The presence of spore−like bodies in the studied acritarchs supports earlier suggestions, based on ultrastructural and biomarker studies, that some acritarchs can be affined with green algae.
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