Gomphonema pusillum (Grunow) Kulikovskiy & Kociolek, 2015

Kulikovskiy, Maxim S., Kociolek, John P., Solak, Cüneyt N. & Kuznetsova, Irina, 2015, The diatom genus Gomphonema Ehrenberg in Lake Baikal. II. Revision of taxa from Gomphonema acuminatum and Gomphonema truncatum-capitatum complexes, Phytotaxa 233 (3), pp. 251-272 : 270

Gomphonema pusillum (Grunow) Kulikovskiy & Kociolek , comb. et stat. nov.

Basionym: Gomphonema acuminatum var. pusillum Grunow in Van Heurck., Synopsis des Diatomées de Belgique, pl. 23, fig. 19, 1880.

A challenge to identify Gomphonema taxa from these complexes is the very broad species concepts and restricted documentation (one to three drawings or light microscope images to represent whole species) available in the literature (e. g. Patrick & Reimer 1975, Krammer & Lange - Bertalot 1986, Reichardt 1999, 2001, Thomas et al. 2009). Even Reichardt (1999, 2001), who conducted revisions of these groups, has shown for many species a series of single valves selected from various regions that are combined together into one size diminution series for each taxon. For example, G. capitatum was shown using a dozen valves from different places but without documentation of valve diminution series from a single population or sample ( Reichardt 2001: pl. 1). Recent investigation of the widespread taxon Gomphonema parvulum ( Kützing 1844: 83) Kützing (1849: 65) using morphological and molecular investigations has shown that this species is a complex of pseudocriptic taxa and only few close related species have been described ( Kermarrec et al. 2013, Abarca et al. 2014). We look forward to well - documented species treatments for Gomphonema taxa, and expect as a result a more fine - grained taxonomy for the group.