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Braarudosphaera bigelowii is a coastal coccolithophore in the fossil record going back 100 million years to the Late Cretaceous.
| Braarudosphaera bigelowii Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | |
| (unranked): | |
| Class: | |
| Order: | Coccosphaerales |
| Family: | Braarudosphaeraceae |
| Genus: | Braarudosphaera |
| Species: | B. bigelowii |
| Binomial name | |
| Braarudosphaera bigelowii (Gran & Braarud) Deflandre[1] | |
The family Braarudosphaeraceae consist of single-celled coastal phytoplanktonic algae with calcareous scales with five-fold symmetry, called pentaliths. With 12 sides, it has a regular dodecahedral structure, approximately 10 micrometers across.[2][3]
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B. bigelowii has a nitroplast organelle, originated some 100 million years ago from a cyanobacterial endosymbiont called UCYN-A2, which allows B. bigelowii to fix nitrogen and convert it into compounds useful for cell growth.[4][5][6] This phenomenon is previously known from diatoms in the family Rhopalodiaceae, where a nitrogen fixing and non-photosynthetic cyanobacterial endosymbiont, a diazoplast, provides the photosynthetic host cell with nitrogen.[7][8]
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The genus name Braarudosphaera is in honour of Norwegian botanist Trygve Braarud (1903–1985). He specialized in marine biology, and was affiliated with the University of Oslo.[9]
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