ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Terrestrial Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1578689
Two new non-chlorophyll f-producing species in the Kovacikia genus (Leptolyngbyaceae, Leptolyngbyales) from the Poyang Lake Basin, China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jiangxi Academy of Water Science and Engineering, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
- 2Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
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For the filamentous cyanobacteria, the order Leptolyngbyales is the larger and obviously polyphyletic group, but morphologically similar. In this study, three Leptolyngbya-like strains were isolated from the soil of three different habitats in the Poyang Lake Basin, China which were dark microhabitats similar to the far-red light (FRL) habitats. The three strains were phylogenetically identified as Kovacikia diezihum sp. nov. and Kovacikia jiangxia sp. nov. (Leptolyngbyaceae, Leptolyngbyales) by polyphasic approach, respectively. The phylogenetic tree showed that they clustered in the Kovacikia genus (type species, Kovacikia muscicola) with five other Kovacikia species. The 16S rRNA gene sequences of K. diezihum and K. jiangxia shared 97.2% similarity with each other (data not shown) and 94.9%-96.8% similarity with five other Kovacikia species. And what's more, the secondary structures of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions and ITS sequences showed uniqueness. The two species were similar to other five Kovacikia species on morphology, but K. diezihum was bright blue-green in color, and K. jiangxia was grey-green to bluegreen in color and it's length was usually greater than width in cells under the white light respectively. Pigment analysis showed that the two strains didn't produce phycoerythrin. FRL adaptation experiments further showed that they could neither grow nor produce chlorophyll (Chl) f under FRL.In summary, K. diezihum and K. jiangxia were new non-Chl f-producing species in the Kovacikia genus. This is the first report of both Chl f-producing and non-Chl f-producing species in the same genus in the Leptolyngbyales, helping to shed light on the diversity and the evolutionary divergence of Chl f-producing cyanobacteria.
Keywords: Cyanobacteria, LeptolLeptolyngbya-like, Kovacikia, new species, polyphasic approach
Received: 18 Feb 2025; Accepted: 19 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shen, Dai, Le, Lai, Xinyuan, Li and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Renhui Li, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, 325035, Zhejiang Province, China
Jutao Liu, Jiangxi Academy of Water Science and Engineering, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
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