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Abstract

Cyanobacteria play important roles in soil fertility and soil productivity. Diverse filamentous cyanobacteria due to their ability to add nitrogen and organic carbon to soil and to maintain the physical properties of soil are undoubtedly one of the important groups of cyanobacteria. The present study aimed to understand the diversity of filamentous cyanobacteria (both heterocystous and non-heterocystous) obtained from saline/alkaline soils of Uttar Pradesh, India. Fuzzy cluster analyses of 47 filamentous cyanobacteria based on their cellular dimensions showed high inter-generic diversity among heterocystous cyanobacteria while in non-heterocystous cyanobacteria both inter- and intra-generic diversity was observed. The results of the present study indicated that the dimensions of vegetative cells and heterocysts can be useful for the identification and differentiation of cyanobacteria belonging to Hapalosiphon and Lyngbya. Physiological characterization also revealed a great deal of variation (5-15%) in salinity tolerance. Multiplex HIP fingerprinting revealed a higher genetic diversity in heterocystous (12-76% similarity) than in non-heterocystous cyanobacteria (13-90% similarity). Heterocystous cyanobacteria like Aulosira laxa O. Kirchner ex Bornet & Flahault, Hapalosiphon sp. and Nostoc sp. showed high intra-generic variability while among the non-heterocystous ones, Lyngbya was found to be genetically highly heterogeneous. The results of the present study highlight the importance of morpho-physiological and genetic analyses in deciphering the diversity of filamentous cyanobacteria for the understanding of their population structure, ecology and adaptations.

Keywords

Cyanobacteria Cell size Diversity Fuzzy clustering Highly Iterated Palindrome (HIP) fingerprinting

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Copyright (c) 2026 Hillol Chakdar, Shaloo Verma, Ritu Vishwakarma, Arpan Bhowmik, Samadhan Bagul, Nahid Siddiqui, V Mageshwaran, Anil Saxena

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Chakdar, H., Verma, S., Vishwakarma, R., Bhowmik, A., Bagul, S. Y., Siddiqui, N., … Saxena, A. K. (2026). Molecular and morpho-physiological analyses revealed inter- and intra-generic diversity of filamentous cyanobacteria from saline/alkaline soils. Acta Botanica Croatica, 85(1), 4–14. https://doi.org/10.37427/botcro-2026-005
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