Exploring cyanobacteria from diverse habitats of the Konkan region of India, unveiling novel species of the genera Desikacharya, Pseudoaliinostoc, and Chlorogloeopsis using a polyphasic approach

Abstract

The Indian subcontinent has emerged as a natural habitat to several cyanobacterial taxa which have been explored and described in the past few years using a polyphasic approach. Various new genera and species of Nostoc morphotypes, heteropolar unbranched as well as branched heterocytous cyanobacteria, have been described from various parts of India such as the central mainland, temperate hill stations of extreme northern India, and the biodiversity hotspots of northeast India. Konkan, a small strip of land bounded by Arabian sea on the west and Sahyadri mountains on the east, has various habitats such as coastal beds, old monuments, freshwater lakes, and rivers; however, this region has been less charted in modern cyanobacterial systematics, relative to others. The region has a tropical climate with heavy monsoon showers owing to its location on the windward side of the northern Western Ghats, a global biodiversity hotspot. Through this study, several districts of the Konkan region of Maharashtra and Goa were explored for cyanobacterial diversity and evaluated through a polyphasic approach with three novel species of the genus Desikacharya, two novel species of the genus Pseudoaliinostoc and one new species of the monotypic genus Chlorogloeopsis being described in accordance with the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (ICN).