Cyanobacteria of Ukraine: Taxonomic Structure in 2024

Systematics of cyanobacteria experiencing a period of rapid changes associated with the appearance of new molecular markers, the improvement of molecular phylogenetic methods, and widely used polyphasic approach. Many characters previously considered taxonomically significant have been found to have repeatedly arisen in different phylogenetic lineages during the evolution of cyanobacteria, and genetic diversity of taxa often greatly exceeds their morphological diversity. Attempts to combine the approaches of morphological taxonomy with molecular data did not solve the problem, although they helped to systematize the results of floristic studies. The emergence of a new classification system of cyanobacteria (NCSC), in which the authors relied on genomic phylogeny, determined the need to revise the taxonomic structure of the flora of cyanobacteria of Ukraine, since its last published version, based on taxonomic information as of 2021, no longer corresponds to the modern classification of cyanobacteria. The paper analyzes the main innovations of the NCSC and the changes that have occurred with the leading taxa of the Ukrainian flora, and also provides an updated taxonomic structure of the cyanobacteria of Ukraine.