期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2002
卷号：99
期号：3
页码：1410-1413
DOI：10.1073/pnas.022643899
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Extraordinary preservation in amber of the Miocene termite Mastotermes electrodominicus has led to the discovery of fossil symbiotic microbes. Spirochete bacteria and wood-digesting protists were identified in the intestinal tissue of the insect. Fossil wood (xylem: developing vessel-element cells, fibers, pit connections), protists (most likely xylophagic amitochondriates), an endospore (probably of the filamentous intestinal bacterium Arthromitus = Bacillus), and large spirochetes were seen in thin section by light and transmission electron microscopy. The intestinal microbiota of the living termite Mastotermes darwiniensis, a genus now restricted to northern Australia, markedly resembles that preserved in amber. This is a direct observation of a 20-million-year-old xylophagus termite fossil microbial community.
