A new freshwater Gomphonema Ehrenberg (Bacillariophyta) species from Eastern Himalayas, India

Abstract

A new freshwater diatom species, Gomphonema adhikarii sp. nov., is described from a small roadside pool from the alpine region of Arunachal Pradesh, Eastern Himalayas, India. Detailed valve morphological features, based on both light and scanning electron microscopy, is presented and this taxon is compared with similar species. Gomphonema adhikarii has a distinct asymmetry about the apical axis and slightly bent foot pole area. The outline of the valve is slightly undulate, the valve centre is swollen and both apices are broadly rounded. This new species described from the Eastern Himalayas supports the idea of the area being rich in biodiversity, even with respect to the freshwater diatom flora.

Humidophila manipurensis sp. nov. and the first record of Humidophila bigibba (Hustedt) Lowe, Kociolek, Johansen, Van de Vijver, Lange-Bertalot et Kopalová from Northeast India

“…Among the microorganisms, algae of the Northeast Indian region have received considerable attention in terms of new records and discoveries (Biswas 1930(Biswas , 1934Bhâradwâja 1963;Das et al 2019). For example, several new diatom species have been described from this locality, belonging to the genera Stauroneis (Wadmare et al 2019), Pinnularia (Das et al 2020), Gomphonema (Radhakrishnan et al 2020), and Diploneis (Bhatt & Karthick 2020). The present study describes a new species of Humdiophila, H. manipurensis, and reports the presence of another taxon H. bigibba for the first time in India.…”