Review and assessment of the significance of scientific works by I.V. Zmitrovich, devoted to the processes of biological development and eukaryote megataxonomy

The present review provides a detailed bibliographic analysis of scientific works, including little-known ones, by I.V. Zmitrovich, devoted to the processes of biological development and taxonomy of eukaryotes. As the study of the bibliographic heritage of I.V. Zmitrovich has shown, important issues of theoretical biology raised in his works were morphogenesis, adaptogenesis, and eukaryote megataxonomy. First of all, by the specificity of affiliation, I.V. Zmitrovich was interested in fungi – osmoheterotrophic organisms with a chitinous cell wall, an open growth system, resembling plants and for a long time attributed to this kingdom. However, consideration of the tendencies of the development of multicellularity and modular theory expanded the realm of interests of this researcher, being extended to the evolution of the vegetative body of plant organism, including higher plants with different types of cells and tissue differentiation. The purpose of this review was to study and acquaint our readers with the numerous scientific works by I.V. Zmitrovich devoted to the morphogenesis and taxonomy of eukaryotes of the last thirty years, many of which, in our opinion, were undeservedly lost in the intensifying flow of scientific and technical information of recent years.