Abstract
Species assigned to Porphyra sensu lato (Bangiales) make up one of the largest groups of red algae in the world. While the Bangiales are monophyletic, Porphyra is not, but the number of genera remains unresolved and a consensus needs to be reached on how to proceed. Here, it is proposed that a global taxonomy for the group would enable resolution and consensus. Using examples from our work on Porphyra in both the northern and southern hemispheres, including the North Atlantic, Mediterranean and Pacific, notably Chile, we have addressed the following questions: i) how many species are there, ii) how many species are there in different parts of the world, and iii) how do these species relate to those in different parts of the world? A cumulative total of species described in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean since 1800 indicates that there are still species to be added to the flora for these regions. Determination of intraspecific diversity or diversity within species complexes was examined using the mitochondrial cox1. The results split the species into two distinct groups, revealed differences between the British and Faroese floras and indicated a new species in the Faroes. Detection of species diversity in different geographical areas of the world and their relationship with the North Atlantic and southeast Pacific (Chile) was studied using the plastid Rubisco spacer and partial rDNA SSU data. While the Rubisco spacer was limited for global comparisons, it was useful for species identification adding five more species to the Atlantic flora. The partial rDNA SSU data, while its shortness made it unsuitable for generic interpretation, revealed the spread of taxa from different geographical areas throughout the tree. We have concluded that to achieve a global taxonomy standard molecular markers should be used and we propose that the rbcL and complete rDNA SSU would be suitable. We have also concluded that while a few regions of the world have been well studied, before a consensus on generic boundaries can be achieved detailed taxonomic studies are needed in many other parts of the world including circumpolar Arctic, mid and southwest Atlantic and southeast Asia.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bray TL, Neefus CD, Mathieson AC (2006) Morphological and molecular variability of Porphyra purpurea (Roth) C. Agardh (Rhodophyta, Bangiales) from the Northwest Atlantic. Nova Hedwig 82:1–22
Brodie JA, Irvine LM (2003) Seaweeds of the British Isles volume 1 part 3B Bangiophycidae. Intercept, Hampshire
Brodie J, Nielsen R (2005) The diversity of the Bangiophycidae (Rhodophyta) of the Faroes in the context of the northern Atlantic. Biofar Proceedings Fróðskaparrit (Annales Societatis Scientarum Færensis), pp 52–61
Brodie J, Zuccarello GC (2007) Systematics of the species-rich algae: red algal classification, phylogeny and speciation. In: Hodkinson TR, Parnell J, Waldren S (eds) The taxonomy and systematics of large and species-rich taxa: building and using the Tree of Life. Systematics Association Series, CRC, Boca Raton, FL, pp 317–330
Brodie J, Hayes PK, Barker GL, Irvine LM (1996) Molecular and morphological characters distinguishing two Porphyra species (Rhodophyta: Bangiophycidae). Eur J Phycol 31:303–308
Brodie J, Hayes PK, Barker GL, Irvine LM, Bartsch I (1998) A reappraisal of Porphyra and Bangia (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) in the northeast Atlantic based on the rbcL-rbcS intergenic spacer. J Phycol 34:1069–1074
Brodie J, Bartsch I, Neefus C, Orfinidis S, Bray T, Mathieson A (2007) New insights into the cryptic diversity of the North Atlantic-Mediterranean ‘Porphyra leucosticta’ complex: P. olivii sp. nov. and P. rosengurttii (Bangiales, Rhodophyta). Eur J Phycol 42:3–28
Brodie JA, Irvine LM, Neefus CD, Russell SJ (in press) Ulva umbilicalis L. and Porphyra umbilicalis Kütz. (Rhodophyta, Bangiaceae): a molecular and morphological redescription of the species, with a typification update. Taxon.
Broom JE, Jones WA, Hill DF, Knight GA, Nelson WA (1999) Species recognition in New Zealand Porphyra using 18S rDNA sequencing. J Appl Phycol 11:421–428
Broom JES, Farr TJ, Nelson WA (2004) Phylogeny of the Bangia (Rhodophyta) flora of New Zealand suggests a southern origin for Porphra and Bangia. Mol Phylogenet Evol 31:1197–1207
Butterfield NJ (2000) Bangiomorpha pubescens n. gen., n. sp.: implications for the evolution of sex, multicellularity and the Mesopreterozoic- Neoproterozoic radiation of eukaryotes. Paleobiology 26:386–404
Drew KM (1949) Conchocelis-phase in the life history of Porphyra umbilicalis (L.) Kütz. Nature 164:748–749
Drew KM (1954) Life history of Porphyra. Nature 173:1243
Farr TJ, Nelson WA, Broom JES (2003) A challenge to the taxonomy of Porphyra in Australia: the New Zealand red alga Porphyra rakiura (Bangiaales, Rhodophyta) occurs in sourthern Australia, and is distinct from P. lucasii. Aus J Syst Bot 16:569–575
Fujiyoshi E, Kikuchi N, Ogawa H (2007) Porphyra in southeast Asia. XIXth International Seaweed Symposium, Kobe, Japan p 60 [abstract]
Hall TA (2004) BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucl Acids Symp Ser 41:95–98
Holmes MJ, Brodie J (2004) Morphology, phenology and life history of Porphyra dioica (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) in the field and in laboratory culture. Phycologia 43:176–188
Jones WA, Griffin NJ, Jones DT, Nelson WA, Farr TJ, Broom JE (2004) Phylogenetic diversity in South African Porphyra (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) determined by nuclear SSU sequence analysis. Eur J Phycol 39:197–211
Kapraun DF, Lemus AJ (1987) Field and culture studies of Porphyra spiralis var. amplifolia Oliveira Filho et Coll (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) from Isla de Margarita, Venezuela. Bot Mar 30:483–490
Klein AS, Mathieson AC, Neefus CD, Cain DF, Taylor HA, West AL, Hehre EJ, Brodie J, Yarish C, Teasdale B, Wallace AL (2003) Identification of north-western Atlantic Porphyra (Bangiaceae, Bangiales) based on sequence variation in nuclear SSU and rbcL genes. Phycologia 42:109–122
Kunimoto M, Kito H, Kaminishi Y, Mizukami Y, Murase N (1999) Molecular divergence of the SSU rRNA gene and internal transcribed spacer 1 in Porphyra yezoensis (Rhodophyta). J Appl Phycol 11:211–216
Levine I (1998) Commercial cultivation of Porphyra (nori) in the United States. World Aquac 29:37–47
Lindstrom SC (2008) Cryptic diversity, biogeography and genetic variation in northeast Pacific species of Porphyra sensu lato (Bangiales, Rhodophyta). J Appl Phycol DOI 10.1007/s10811-008-9313-9
Lindstrom SC, Fredericq S (2003) rbcL gene sequences reveal relationships among north-east Pacific species of Porphyra (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) and a new species, P. aestivalis. Phycol Res 51:211–224
Milstein D, de Oliveira MC (2005) Molecular phylogeny of Bangiales (Rhodophyta) based on small subunit rDNA sequencing: emphasis on Brazilian Porphyra species. Phycologia 44:212–221
Mortensen AM, Brodie J, Nielsen R, Pedersen PM (2007) A study of Porphyra (Rhodophyta) species and their communities in the Faroes Islands: an ecological, morphological and molecular approach. Seaweed Symposium, Kobe, Japan, p 174 [abstract]
Müller KM, Sheath RG, Vis ML, Crease TJ, Cole KM (1998) Biogeography and systematics of Bangia (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) based on the Rubisco spacer, rbcL gene and 18S rRNA gene sequences and morphometric analysis. 1. North America. Phycologica 37:195–207
Müller KM, Cannone JJ, Gutell RR, Sheath RG (2001a) A structural and phylogenetic analysis of the group ICI introns in the order Bangiales (Rhodophyta). Mol Biol Evol 18:1654–1667
Müller KM, Oliveira MC, Sheath RG, Bhattacharya D (2001b) Ribosomal DNA phylogeny of the Bangiophycidae (Rhodophyta) and the origin of secondary plastids. Am J Bot 88:1390–1400
Müller KM, Cannone JJ, Sheath RG (2005) A molecular phylogenetic analysis of the Bangiales (Rhodophyta) and description of a new genus, Pseudobangia kaycoleia. Phycologia 45:146–155
Neefus CD (2007) Untangling the Porphyra leucosticta complex. International Seaweed Symposium, Kobe, Japan, pp 121–122 [abstract]
Nelson WA, Broom JE (2005) Contributions of molecular biology to understanding systematics and phylogeny in the order Bangiales. Nat Hist Res Spec Issue 8:1–12
Nelson WA, Farr TJ, Broom JES (2006) Phylogenetic relationships and generic concepts in the red order Bangiales: challenges ahead. Phycologia 45:249–259
Notoya M (1997) Diversity of life history in the genus Porphyra. Nat Hist Res Spec Issue 3:47–56
Nylander JAA (2005) MrModeltest v2.2. Program distributed by the author. Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University
Oliveira MC, Kurniawan J, Bird CJ, Rice EL, Murphy CA, Singh RK, Gutell RR, Ragan MA (1995) A preliminary investigation of the order Bangiales (Bangiophycidae, Rhodophyta) based on sequences of nuclear small-subunit ribosomal RNA genes. Phycol Res 43:71–79
Ragan M, Bird CJ, Rice EL, Gutell R, Murphy CA, Singh RK (1994) A molecular phylogeny of the marine red alae (Rhodophyta) based on the nuclear small-subunit rRNA gene. Proc Nat Acad Sci U S A 91:7276–7280
Robba L, Russell SJ, Barker GL, Brodie J (2006) Assessing the use of the mitochondrial cox1 marker for use in DNA barcoding of red algae (Rhodophyta). Am J Bot 93:1101–1108
Sahoo D, Baweja P, Kushwah N (2006) Developmental studies in Porphyra vietnamensis: a high temperature resistant species from the Indian coast. J Appl Phycol 18:279–286
Saunders GW, Hommersand MH (2004) Assessing red algal supraordinal diversity and taxonomy in the context of contemporary systematic data. Am J Bot 91:1494–1507
Swofford DL (2002) PAUP*: Phylogenetic Analysis Using. Parsimony (* and other methods). Version 4.0. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA
West AL, Mathieson AC, Klein AS, Neefus CD, Bray TL (2005) Molecular ecological studies of New England species of Porphyra (Rhodophyta, Bangiales). Nova Hedwigia 80:1–24
Acknowledgements
We thank Notoya Masahiro for inviting JB to speak at the 19th International Seaweed Symposium in the symposium ‘Regional distribution and variation of the genus Porphyra: its utilization and application’. We thank Ruth Nielsen and Ian Tittley for specimens. We are extremely grateful to Chris Neefus for generating the Bayesian probabilities, to Wendy Nelson and Judy Broom for molecular advice and Linda Irvine for helpful discussions. We also acknowledge the helpful suggestions of the two referees. JB was funded by The Natural History Museum Enhancement fund to collect in Chile and by the Royal Society to travel to the symposium in Japan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Brodie, J., Mols Mortensen, A., Ramirez, M.E. et al. Making the links: towards a global taxonomy for the red algal genus Porphyra (Bangiales, Rhodophyta). J Appl Phycol 20, 939–949 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-008-9315-7
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-008-9315-7