Brittonia

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New records of the rare North American endemic Chara brittonii (Characeae), with comments on its distribution

  • Kenneth G. Karol
  • Mitchell S. Alix
  • Robin W. Scribailo
  • Paul M. Skawinski
  • Robin S. Sleith
  • Joseph A. Sardina
  • John D. Hall
Article
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Abstract

Characeae is a family of freshwater green algal macrophytes found on every continent except Antarctica. Although some species are thought to be cosmopolitan, others appear to be restricted to relatively small geographic areas. Chara brittonii is a North American endemic previously reported from eight scattered populations in Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio. Given that few extant populations were known, basic questions about its distribution, habitat preference, morphology, and phylogenetic placement remained unanswered. We have surveyed every reported locality for C. brittonii except the New Jersey locality, because the collection details are vague, and also surveyed numerous additional waterbodies in Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. We have found extant populations in nine localities in three states. These include one newly reported site in Indiana and five newly reported sites in Wisconsin, the first known populations in that state. Chara brittonii seems to have been extirpated from several historical sites in recent decades. We expanded both the range and the number of known extant populations for C. brittonii and hypothesize that C. brittonii may be more widespread in the Midwest than previously thought. Factors contributing to the actual and apparent rarity of this species are discussed including its preferred habitat and small size. We observed that the number of antheridial scute cells of C. brittonii varied from 4–8 with both triangular and elongate scutes produced on the same thallus, an unusual condition for the family. Phylogenetic analyses using three plastid-encoded markers placed C. brittonii among a paraphyletic grade of C. foliolosa sensu lato strains in the monophyletic subsection Willdenowia. We propose that C. foliolosa, as currently recognized, represents a species complex of several phylogenetically distinct lineages, and conclude that C. brittonii is a structurally and phylogenetically distinct species worthy of conservation.

Keywords

Aquatic plants Biogeography Charophyta Ecology Green algae Phylogeny 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank BUT, CACS, ILL, NY, PUL, and UWSP for providing specimens for this study. We especially acknowledge the University of Wisconsin Herbarium (WIS) for generously providing specimens on loan and allowing us to review their recent collections. We are particularly grateful for the assistance in field collections and sample preparations provided by Ryan Scribailo. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for critically evaluating and improving the manuscript. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers DEB-1020660 and DEB-1036466 and by the Hanes Trust under grant number 205891.

Supplementary material

12228_2018_9527_Fig4_ESM.gif (927 kb)
Suppl. Material 1

Phylogeny of Characeae based on a Maximum Likelihood (RAxML) analysis of three plastid-encoded genes (atpB, psbC, rbcL). Numbers above the branches represent, respectively, bootstrap support from Maximum Parsimony and RAxML analyses and posterior probabilities from Bayesian Inference. An asterisk represents a bootstrap value of 100 or a posterior probability of 1.0. A dash represents a bootstrap value of 50 or less and a posterior probability of 0.5 or less. Numbers in brackets are barcodes for herbarium specimens. NY = William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, The New York Botanical Garden; US = National Museum of Natural History Herbarium, Smithsonian Institution. The genera Lamprothamnium, Lychnothamnus, Nitella, Nitellopsis, and Tolypella were found to be monophyletic. However, the subfamily Nitelleae was paraphyletic with Nitella sister to the Chareae. (GIF 926 kb)

12228_2018_9527_MOESM1_ESM.tif (5.3 mb)
High resolution image (TIFF 5395 kb)

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Copyright information

© The New York Botanical Garden 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  • Kenneth G. Karol
    • 1
  • Mitchell S. Alix
    • 2
  • Robin W. Scribailo
    • 2
  • Paul M. Skawinski
    • 3
  • Robin S. Sleith
    • 1
  • Joseph A. Sardina
    • 1
  • John D. Hall
    • 4
  1. 1.Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Program for Molecular SystematicsThe New York Botanical GardenBronxUSA
  2. 2.Department of Biological SciencesPurdue University NorthwestWestvilleUSA
  3. 3.UW-Extension Lakes ProgramUniversity of Wisconsin - Stevens PointStevens PointUSA
  4. 4.Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel UniversityPhiladelphiaUSA

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