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Three new species of Asteromenia (Hymenocladiaceae, Rhodophyta) from Australia

  • John M. Huisman

    John M. Huisman is Curator at the Western Australian Herbarium. He earned his PhD at the University of Melbourne, where he developed his interests in the taxonomy of marine macroalgae. After moving to Perth, he embarked on a lifelong project to document (by description and photographically) the seaweeds of Australia’s west coast. Author of several books, including Marine Plants of Australia (revised in 2019), Hawaiian Reef Plants, and two volumes in the Algae of Australia series describing the marine flora of tropical Western Australia.

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    and Gary W. Saunders

    Gary W. Saunders is a researcher at the Centre for Environmental & Molecular Algal Research, Biology, University of New Brunswick Fredericton. His current research interests include biodiversity and biogeography of seaweeds with an emphasis on origins of the Arctic flora, shifts in species ranges owing to climate change, kelp forest restoration, rhodolith diversity, and metabarcoding.

From the journal Botanica Marina

Abstract

Three new species of the red algal genus Asteromenia (Hymenocladiaceae, Rhodophyta) are described based on morphological and molecular analyses. DNA analyses of recent collections of topotype specimens of A. examinans from the Houtman Abrolhos Islands (Western Australia) have revealed that the specimens used in earlier studies were misidentified and represent an undescribed species, herein described as A. juliannae. Two additional new species, A. crenulata and A. praetermissa are described from the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island, respectively. For the most part, the new species showed morphological overlap and could not be discriminated based on morphology alone; DNA sequencing is therefore considered essential for accurate species recognition. The potential for misidentification of morphologically similar specimens highlights the need for sequence analyses and reference barcoding to be based on type or topotype specimens. The adoption of molecular methods in alpha taxonomy has led to the recognition of considerable diversity in the Rhodymeniales and it is envisaged that further collecting will add even more taxa to Australia’s rich algal flora.


Corresponding author: John M. Huisman, Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Western Australian Herbarium, Locked Bag 104, Bentley Delivery Centre, Bentley, Western Australia, 6983, Australia, E-mail:

About the authors

John M. Huisman

John M. Huisman is Curator at the Western Australian Herbarium. He earned his PhD at the University of Melbourne, where he developed his interests in the taxonomy of marine macroalgae. After moving to Perth, he embarked on a lifelong project to document (by description and photographically) the seaweeds of Australia’s west coast. Author of several books, including Marine Plants of Australia (revised in 2019), Hawaiian Reef Plants, and two volumes in the Algae of Australia series describing the marine flora of tropical Western Australia.

Gary W. Saunders

Gary W. Saunders is a researcher at the Centre for Environmental & Molecular Algal Research, Biology, University of New Brunswick Fredericton. His current research interests include biodiversity and biogeography of seaweeds with an emphasis on origins of the Arctic flora, shifts in species ranges owing to climate change, kelp forest restoration, rhodolith diversity, and metabarcoding.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Ann Gunness for providing the topotype specimens of A. exanimans. We thank the staff of the Western Australian Herbarium. Tanya Moore (UNB) is appreciated for sequencing the specimens used in this study and Kyatt Dixon for his assistance in collecting at the Cocos (Keelings) Islands and Norfolk Island.

  1. Author contribution: Both authors initiated the project, undertook the morphological analyses, and wrote the text. GWS was responsible for DNA sequencing and analyses.

  2. Research funding: The genetic work at UNB was supported by Discovery and Accelerator grants to GWS from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, as well as funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation.

  3. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare there are no conflicts of interest related to this article.

  4. Compliance with ethical standards: All procedures were in accordance with the relevant national laws.

References

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Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/bot-2022-0007).


Received: 2022-01-20
Revised: 2022-03-22
Accepted: 2022-03-31
Published Online: 2022-05-03
Published in Print: 2022-06-27

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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