Cianominions
(Authors: Óscar Cabestrero, Lucía Arregui, Esther Sanz-Montero, Susana Serrano. Department of Microbiology III and Department of Petrology and Geochemistry, Complutense University of Madrid).
In certain alkaline environments, cyanobacteria carrying out their metabolic work of photosynthesis favor the precipitation of minerals, like the “minions” that perform a multitude of tasks so that everything works well. Cyanobacteria are autotrophic photosynthetic bacteria that fix CO2 and promote the precipitation of carbonates that form limestone rocks. This is an extreme environment due to its high concentration of ions and despite this there is a high microbial diversity. In vivo observation of the sample was carried out in a differential interference optical microscope, at 1,000x magnification.
