Four Novel Species of <i>Kastovskya</i> (Coleofasciculaceae, Cyanobacteriota) from Three Continents with a Taxonomic Revision of <i>Symplocastrum</i>
2024
Brian M. Jusko | Jeffrey R. Johansen | Smail Mehda | Elvira Perona | M. Ángeles Muñoz-Martín
Studies performed in North America, Africa, and South America have led to the isolation of four new species of <i>Kastovskya</i>, a filamentous cyanobacterial genus that before this manuscript had only one species, <i>Kastovskya adunca</i> from Chile. <i>Kastovskya nitens</i> and <i>K. viridissima</i> were isolated from soils on San Nicolas Island, <i>K. sahariensis</i> was isolated from hypolithic habitats from the Sahara Desert in Algeria, and <i>K. circularithylacoides</i> was isolated from hypolithic habitats in Chile. The molecular analyses are corroborated by morphological data, morphometric analysis, and ecological and biogeographical considerations for robust polyphasic descriptions of all taxa. The peculiar transatlantic distribution of this genus bears similarity to other taxa in recently published studies and is in agreement with a hypothesis suggesting that cyanobacteria in Africa may disperse to the Americas on dust particles during windstorms. This work is unusual in that species in a single rare cyanobacterial genus with a disjunct distribution are described simultaneously from three continents. The 16S rRNA gene analyses performed for this study also revealed that another recent genus, <i>Arizonema</i>, is clearly a later synonym of <i>Symplocastrum</i>. This issue is resolved here with the collapsing of the type species <i>Arizonema commune</i> into <i>Symplocastrum flechtnerae</i>.
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