The genus Gomphonema (Bacillariophyta) in Rara Lake, Nepal: taxonomy, morphology, habitat distribution and description of five new species, and a new record for Gomphoneis qii

Abstract

During the first study of the diverse diatom assemblages in Rara Lake, the largest lake in Nepal, 11 species of Gomphonema, belonging to six morphological groups, and Gomphoneis qii could be investigated using light and scanning electron microscopy. Five new Gomphonema species are described: Gomphonema subodhii, Gomphonema parasundaense, Gomphonema raraense, Gomphonema parapygmaeum and Gomphonema himalayaense. Known species included Gomphonema sublaticollum, Gomphonema cf. capitatum, Gomphonema minusculum, Gomphonema lateripunctatum, Gomphonema tergestinum (the only one previously recorded from Nepal) and Gomphonema vibrio. The history of the latter name is explained in detail. The distribution of the Gomphonema species, number of species and records in the littoral of the lake shore varied and was related to the presence of suitable substrata, land use and season, with more records and species present in spring than in autumn.

This publication is dedicated to the victims of the earthquakes which hit Nepal in 2015 and to their families.

Keywords:

• diatom diversity
• freshwater
• Gomphonema
• Himalaya
• mountains
• morphology
• Nepal
• Rara Lake

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, Nepal, for giving us the permission to work in the Rara National Park, and to the warden and the army personnel at Rara Lake for facilitating and helping us in the field. We thank Alex Ball and Tomasz Goral, Imaging and Analysis Centre, the Natural History Museum, London, for their support when using the scanning electron microscope. We thank two anonymous reviewers and Eileen Cox for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Smriti Gurung http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2975-3204

Anu Gurung http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0576-0055

Luc Ector http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4573-9445

Additional information

Funding

We thank the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) for funding the field work at Rara Lake in 2015 and 2016 as part of the SUNREM – Himalaya project (Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and Climate Change Adaptation in the Himalayan Region, Project No. QZA-0485NPL-13/0022).