Left restriction semigroups are the unary semigroups that abstractly characterize semigroups of partial maps on a set, where the unary operation associates to a map the identity element on its domain. They may be defined by a simple set of identities and the author initiated a study of the lattice of varieties of such semigroups, in parallel with the study of the lattice of varieties of two-sided restriction semigroups. In this work we study the subvariety $\mathbf{B}$ generated by Brandt semigroups and the subvarieties generated by the five-element Brandt inverse semigroup $B_{2}$, its four-element restriction subsemigroup $B_{0}$ and its three-element left restriction subsemigroup $D$. These have already been studied in the ‘plain’ semigroup context, in the inverse semigroup context (in the first two instances) and in the two-sided restriction semigroup context (in all but the last instance). The author has previously shown that in the last of these contexts, the behavior is pathological: ‘almost all’ finite restriction semigroups are inherently nonfinitely based. Here we show that this is not the case for left restriction semigroups, by exhibiting identities for the above varieties and for their joins with monoids (the analog of groups in this context). We do so by structural means involving subdirect decompositions into certain primitive semigroups. We also show that each identity has a simple structural interpretation.

We give a sufficient condition under which a semigroup is nonfinitely based. As an application, we show that a certain variety is nonfinitely based, and we indicate the additional analysis (to be presented in a forthcoming paper), which shows that this example is a new limit variety of aperiodic monoids.

Only three of the 15 973 distinct six-element semigroups are presently known to be nonfinitely based. This paper introduces a fourth example.

A variety is said to be a Rees–Sushkevich variety if it is contained in a periodic variety generated by 0-simple semigroups. Recently, all combinatorial Rees–Sushkevich varieties have been shown to be finitely based. The present paper continues the investigation of these varieties by describing those that are Cross, finitely generated, or small. It is shown that within the lattice of combinatorial Rees–Sushkevich varieties, the set ℱ of finitely generated varieties constitutes an incomplete sublattice and the set 𝒮 of small varieties constitutes a strict incomplete sublattice of ℱ. Consequently, a combinatorial Rees–Sushkevich variety is small if and only if it is Cross. An algorithm is also presented that decides if an arbitrarily given finite set Σ of identities defines, within the largest combinatorial Rees–Sushkevich variety, a subvariety that is finitely generated or small. This algorithm has complexity 𝒪(nk) where n is the number of identities in Σ and k is the length of the longest word in Σ.

We derive a Mal'cev condition for congruence meet-semidistributivity and then use it to prove two theorems. Theorem A: if a variety in a finite language is congruence meet-semidistributive and residually less than some finite cardinal, then it is finitely based. Theorem B: there is an algorithm which, given m < ω and a finite algebra in a finite language, determines whether the variety generated by the algebra is congruence meet-semidistributive and residually less than m.