Researchers from the Allen Herbarium in New Zealand, Western Washington University in the USA and the Fraunhofer IZI-BB have described a new member of snow algae and used the occasion to honor the former director of the Fraunhofer IZI-BB (formerly Fraunhofer IBMT), Prof. Dr. G. Fuhr. In the publication of Novis et. al. the rare but cosmopolitan snow alga was named after Prof. Fuhr and is now called: Chloromonas fuhrii .
The taxonomic investigation and new classification of this snow alga with regard to its relationship to other snow algae sheds new light on the consideration of previously known snow algae species. They have often been considered »cosmopolitan« based on regional data from the Arctic, Antarctic and alpine regions. The newly described species may come closest to the standard of a »true« cosmopolitan, as it occurs in both polar regions as well as on snow from alpine regions in New Zealand and is thus distributed in both hemispheres. Strains of the new alga have been isolated from different colors of snow, including green, orange and pink-red snow. Three strains from remote regions such as Spitsbergen (Svalbard) and Antarctica have already existed in the CCCryo algae collection at IZI-BB since 1999, but only now have been taxonomically examined using molecular methods, as well as subjected to a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis.
In the scientific publication by Novis et. al. the isolates were assigned to the genus Chloromonas and named after Prof. Dr. Günter Fuhr: Chloromonas fuhrii. The researchers thus pay tribute to Prof. Fuhr and his many years of commitment to snow algae research since the late 1990s. He led seven polar expeditions and founded the successful »Extremophile Research« group at Fraunhofer IZI-BB (initially Fraunhofer IBMT). There, at the Potsdam-Golm site, together with Dr. Thomas Leya, he established a collection of cryophilic algae and microorganisms (CCCryo).
The »CCCryo - Culture Collection of Cryophilic Algae« still serves as a bioresource for snow algae researchers worldwide and for the development of industrial products. Thanks to the long-standing establishment of the collection, snow algae are slowly gaining more attention as a promising new resource in both fundamental and applied research. Snow algae possess some as yet unknown properties that could also be valuable for industrial products. The CCCryo collection also investigates the adaptation strategies of algae to extreme environmental conditions and develops special algal enzymes and metabolites for industrial applications. There are many research institutions worldwide with biobanks that cultivate microalgae and cyanobacteria, and CCCryo is the only one in the world that specializes in cold-adapted algae. The CCCryo collection offers researchers and companies the opportunity to search its extensive database for specific properties and metabolites and to order the corresponding strains.
Novis, P. M., Kodner, R. B., Podolyan, A., & Leya, T. (2024). Chloromonas fuhrii sp. nov. (Chlorophyceae), a cosmopolitan alga from colored snow. Phycologia, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/00318884.2024.2313780
Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, Branch Bioanalytics and Bioprocesses IZI-BB
