The shortage of reliable primary taxonomic data limits the description of biological taxa and the understanding of biodiversity patterns and processes, complicating biogeographical, ecological, and evolutionary studies. This deficit creates a significant taxonomic impediment to biodiversity research and conservation planning. The taxonomic impediment and the biodiversity crisis are widely recognized, highlighting the urgent need for reliable taxonomic data. Over the past decade, numerous countries worldwide have devoted considerable effort to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which called for the preparation of a working list of all known plant species by 2010 and an online world Flora by 2020. Brazil is a megadiverse country, home to more of the world's known plant species than any other country. Despite that, Flora Brasiliensis, concluded in 1906, was the last comprehensive treatment of the Brazilian flora. The lack of accurate estimates of the number of species of algae, fungi, and plants occurring in Brazil contributes to the prevailing taxonomic impediment and delays progress towards the GSPC targets. Over the past 12 years, a legion of taxonomists motivated to meet Target 1 of the GSPC, worked together to gather and integrate knowledge on the algal, plant, and fungal diversity of Brazil. Overall, a team of about 980 taxonomists joined efforts in a highly collaborative project that used cybertaxonomy to prepare an updated Flora of Brazil, showing the power of scientific collaboration to reach ambitious goals. This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian Flora 2020 and provides taxonomic and spatial updates on the algae, fungi, and plants found in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. We further identify collection gaps and summarize future goals that extend beyond 2020. Our results show that Brazil is home to 46,975 native species of algae, fungi, and plants, of which 19,669 are endemic to the country. The data compiled to date suggests that the Atlantic Rainforest might be the most diverse Brazilian domain for all plant groups except gymnosperms, which are most diverse in the Amazon. However, scientific knowledge of Brazilian diversity is still unequally distributed, with the Atlantic Rainforest and the Cerrado being the most intensively sampled and studied biomes in the country. In times of “scientific reductionism”, with botanical and mycological sciences suffering pervasive depreciation in recent decades, the first online Flora of Brazil 2020 significantly enhanced the quality and quantity of taxonomic data available for algae, fungi, and plants from Brazil. This project also made all the information freely available online, providing a firm foundation for future research and for the management, conservation, and sustainable use of the Brazilian funga and flora.

Este trabalho trata da desmidioflórula de um lago marginal do rio Acre, lago Novo Andirá (AM), baseado na análise de 52 amostras coletadas, mensalmente, no período de maio/ 1988 a junho/1989. Foram identificados e descritos 98 táxons de desmídias, dos quais 38 são variações da espécie típica correspondente, distribuídos em 10 gêneros e três famílias. Os gêneros Cosmarium, Closterium e Staurastrum foram, em termos qualitativos, os mais bem representados, com 29, 19 e 16 espécies, respectivamente; os menos representados foram Gonatozygon, Octacanthium e Xanthidium, com uma espécie cada. A distribuição geográfica foi feita com base na literatura publicadada até dezembro de 1998 e foram considerados tanto os trabalhos mais completos, com descrições e/ou ilustrações, quanto aqueles nos quais constam apenas listagem de espécies. Devido à variação morfológica observada na população, particularmente neste trabalho, o gênero Staurastrum foi o que apresentou maiores problemas taxonômicos, conflitando dados registrados em literatura. A variação morfológica em nível populacional também impossibilitou a identificação de Euastrum verrucosum Ehrenberg ex Ralfs.

Euglenophyceae (phototrophic euglenids) are an important lineage within the Euglenida, Euglenozoa. Most of the approximately 3,000 described species are free-living, phototrophic, unicellular flagellates with one to several plastids of secondary origin, three bounding membranes and chlorophylls a and b; but, the lineage also includes colorless species that lost their photosynthesizing capability. They show a typical cell membrane consisting of parallel proteinaceous strips and microtubules located underneath the plasma membrane, and discoid mitochondrial cristae. Euglenozoa are a monophyletic group that includes, besides Euglenida, the Kinetoplastidea, Diplonomea and Symbiontida. Since the class Euglenophyceae was proposed, its classification system has undergone several revisions, mainly after the adoption of molecular techniques. This article summarizes recent advances in the phylogeny and classification of the phototrophic euglenids, aiming at understanding the situation of the group within the phylum Euglenozoa, as well as its evolutionary relationships and the changes in its taxonomic classification. The current status of the group, as well as the limitations derived from the lack of inclusion of tropical strains in phylogenetic studies is briefly discussed.