Abstract
The seagrass Halophila major (Zoll.) Miquel is reported for the first time from Vietnam. It was found growing with other seagrass species nearshore, 4–6 m deep at Tre Island, Nha Trang Bay. Leaf morphology and phylogenetic analysis based on ribosomal internal transcribed spacer sequences confirmed the identification. There was very little sequence differentiation among samples of H. major collected in Vietnam and other countries in the Western Pacific region. A very low evolutionary divergence among H. major populations was found.
We are deeply indebted to all staff at the Institute of Botany, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, and at the Department of Marine Botany, Institute of Oceanography, Vietnam, for kind support in the laboratory work and sample collection. Special and sincere thanks are also due to Prof. Dr. Karla McDermid (Hawaii University at Hilo, USA) for critically reading the manuscript and generously providing many valuable suggestions. This research was financially supported by the Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, and the Government of Vietnam.
References
Annaletchumy, L., S. Japar, H. Muta Harah and A. Arshad. 2005. Morphology of Halophila ovalis (R.Br.) Hook. f. from Peninsular and East Malaysia. Pertanika J. Trop. Agric. Sci. 28: 1–12.Search in Google Scholar
Chen, L.Y., J.M. Chen, R.W. Gituru and Q.F. Wang. 2012. Generic phylogeny, historical biogeography and character evolution of the cosmopolitan aquatic plant family Hydrocharitaceae. BMC Evol. Biol. 12:30.Search in Google Scholar
Dai, N.H., P.H. Tri, N.X. Hoa and N.T. Linh. 1998. Seagrass beds in the South of Vietnam. Proc. 4th Nat. Conf. Mar. Sci. Tech. 2: 967–972.Search in Google Scholar
den Hartog, C. 1970. The sea-grasses of the world. North-Holland, Amsterdam Publishing Company, Amsterdam. pp. 257.Search in Google Scholar
Felsenstein, J. 1992. Phylogenies from restriction sites: a maximum-likelihood approach. Evolution 46: 159–173.10.1111/j.1558-5646.1992.tb01991.xSearch in Google Scholar
Hedge, S., N. Smith and R.K.F. Unsworth. 2009. Temporal and spatial morphological variability of the seagrasses Halophila ovalis and Halodule uninervis throughout the Great Barrier Reef region: preliminary analysis. Report to the Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility. Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited, Cairns. pp. 15.Search in Google Scholar
Kuo, J., Z. Kanomoto, H. Iizumi and H. Mukai. 2006. Seagrasses of the genus Halophila Thours (Hydrocharitaceae) from Japan. Acta Phytotax. Geobot. 57: 129–154.Search in Google Scholar
Lucas, C., T. Thangaradjou and J. Papenbrock. 2012. Development of a DNA barcoding system for seagrasses: successful but not simple. PLoS One 7: e29987.10.1371/journal.pone.0029987Search in Google Scholar
McDermid, K.J., M.C. Gregoritza and D.W. Freshwater. 2002. A new record of a second seagrass species from the Hawaiian archipelago: Halophila decipiens Ostenfeld. Aquat. Bot. 74: 257–262.10.1016/S0304-3770(02)00081-5Search in Google Scholar
McDermid, K.J., M.C. Gregoritza, J.W. Reeves and D.W. Freshwater. 2003. Morphological and genetic variation in the endemic sea grass Halophila hawaiiana (Hydrocharitaceae) in the Hawaiian Archipelago. Pac. Sci. 57: 199–209.10.1353/psc.2003.0017Search in Google Scholar
McMahon, K.M. and M. Waycott. 2009. New record for Halophila decipiens Ostenfeld in Kenya based on morphological and molecular evidence. Aquat. Bot. 91: 318–320.10.1016/j.aquabot.2009.07.008Search in Google Scholar
Miki, S. 1934. On the sea-grasses in Japan (II): Cymodocea and marine Hydrocharitaceae. Bot. Mag. Tokyo 48: 131–141.10.15281/jplantres1887.48.131Search in Google Scholar
Nguyen, X.V., J.S. Bujang and J. Papenbrock. 2013. Variability of leaf morphology and marker genes of members of the Halophila complex collected in Vietnam. Aquat. Bot. 10.1016/j.aquabot.2013.04.003. Available online 13 May 2013Search in Google Scholar
Posada, D. 2008. jModelTest: phylogenetic model averaging. Mol. Biol. Evol. 25: 1253–1256.10.1093/molbev/msn083Search in Google Scholar PubMed
Ronquist, F., J. Huelsenbeck and M. Teslenko. 2011. MRBAYES 3.2: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models. Bioinformatics 19: 1572–1574.10.1093/bioinformatics/btg180Search in Google Scholar PubMed
Ruggiero, M.V. and G. Procaccini. 2004. The rDNA ITS region in the Lessepsian marine angiosperm Halophila stipulacea (Forssk.) Aschers. (Hydrocharitaceae): intragenomic variability and putative pseudogenic sequences. Mol. Evol. 58: 115–121.10.1007/s00239-003-2536-0Search in Google Scholar PubMed
Saitou, N. and M. Nei. 1987. The neighbor-joining method: a new method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees. Mol. Biol. Evol. 4: 406–425.Search in Google Scholar
Shimada, S., M. Watanabe, K. Ichihara and M. Uchimura. 2012. Morphological variations of seagrass species, Halophila nipponica (Hydrocharitaceae, Alismatales). Coast. Mar. Sci. 35: 85–90.Search in Google Scholar
Short, F.T., W.C. Dennison, T.J.B. Carruthers and M. Waycott. 2007. Global seagrass distribution and diversity: a bioregional model. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 350: 3–20.10.1016/j.jembe.2007.06.012Search in Google Scholar
Short, F.T., G.E. Moore and K.A. Peyton. 2010. Halophila ovalis in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Aquat. Bot. 93: 141–146.10.1016/j.aquabot.2010.05.001Search in Google Scholar
Short, F.T., B. Polidoro, S.R. Livingstone, K.E. Carpenter, S. Bandeira, J.S. Bujang, H.P. Calumpong, T.J.B. Carruthers, R.G. Coles, W.C. Dennison, P.L.A. Erftemeijer, M.D. Fortes, A.S. Freeman, T.G. Jagtap, A.H.M. Kamal, G.A. Kendrick, W.J. Kenworthy, Y.A. LaNafie, I.M. Nasution, R.J. Orth, A. Prathep, J.C. Sanciangco, B.V. Tussenbroek, S.G. Vergara, M. Waycott and J.C. Zieman. 2011. Extinction risk assessment of the world’s seagrass species. Biol. Conserv. 144: 1961–1971.10.1016/j.biocon.2011.04.010Search in Google Scholar
Stanford, A.M., R. Harden and C.R. Parks. 2000. Phylogeny and biogeography of Juglans (Juglandaceae) based on matK and ITS sequence data. Am. J. Bot. 87: 872–882.10.2307/2656895Search in Google Scholar
Štorchová, H., R. Hrdličková, J. Chrtek Jr., M. Tetera, D. Fitze and J. Fehrer. 2000. An improved method of DNA isolation from plants collected in the field and conserved in saturated NaCl/CTAB solution. Taxon 49: 79–84.10.2307/1223934Search in Google Scholar
Tamura, K., D. Peterson, N. Peterson, G. Stecher, M. Nei and S. Kumar. 2011. MEGA5: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis using maximum likelihood, evolutionary distance, and maximum parsimony methods. Mol. Biol. Evol. 28: 2731–2739.Search in Google Scholar
Thompson, J.D., T.J. Gibson, F. Plewniak, F. Jeanmougin and D.G. Higgins. 1997. The CLUSTAL X windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analysis tools. Nucl. Acids Res. 25: 4876–4882.10.1093/nar/25.24.4876Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central
Tien, N.V. 2008. National report on seagrass in the South China Sea. United Nations Environment Programme. Reversing environmental degradation trends in the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand. pp. 33.Search in Google Scholar
Tien, N.V., D.N. Thanh and N.H. Dai. 2002. Seagrasses in Vietnam. Sci. & Tech. Publ. House, Hanoi. pp. 167. (in Vietnamese).Search in Google Scholar
Uchimura, M., E.J. Faye, S. Shimada, S. Arai, T. Inoue and Y. Nakamura. 2006. A re-evaluation of the taxonomic status of Halophila euphlebia Makino (Hydrocharitaceae) based on morphological features and ITS sequence data. Bot. Mar. 49: 111–121.10.1515/BOT.2006.015Search in Google Scholar
Uchimura, M., E.J. Faye, S. Shimada, S. Arai, T. Inoue and Y. Nakamura. 2008. A reassessment of Halophila species (Hydrocharitaceae) diversity with special reference to Japanese representatives. Bot. Mar. 51: 258–268.10.1515/BOT.2008.036Search in Google Scholar
Waycott, M., D. Freshwater, R. York, A. Calladine and W. Kenworthy. 2002. Evolutionary trends in the seagrass genus Halophila (Thouars): insights from molecular phylogeny. Bull. Mar. Sci. 71: 1299–1308.Search in Google Scholar
White, T.J., T. Bruns, S. Lee and J.W. Taylor. 1990. Amplification and direct sequencing of fungal ribosomal RNA genes for phylogenetics. In: (M.A. Innes, D.H. Delfand, J.J. Sninsky and T.J. White, eds.) PCR protocols: a guide to methods and applications. Academic Press, New York. pp. 315–322.Search in Google Scholar
©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston