Taxonomic assessment of North American species of the genera Cumathamnion, Delesseria, Membranoptera and Pantoneura (Delesseriaceae, Rhodophyta) using molecular data

doi:2012.27.3.155

Algae > Volume 27(3); 2012 > Article

Algae 2012;27(3): 155-173. doi: https://doi.org/10.4490/algae.2012.27.3.155

Michael J. Wynne¹^,* and Gary W. Saunders²

¹University of Michigan Herbarium, 3600 Varsity Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48108, USA
²Centre for Environmental & Molecular Algal Research, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3, Canada

*Corresponding Author

Email: mwynne@umich.edu

ABSTRACT

Evidence from molecular data supports the close taxonomic relationship of the two North Pacific species Delesseria decipiens and D. serrulata with Cumathamnion, up to now a monotypic genus known only from northern California, rather than with D. sanguinea, the type of the genus Delesseria and known only from the northeastern North Atlantic. The transfers of D. decipiens and D. serrulata into Cumathamnion are effected. Molecular data also reveal that what has passed as Membranoptera alata in the northwestern North Atlantic is distinct at the species level from northeastern North Atlantic (European) material; M. alata has a type locality in England. Multiple collections of Membranoptera and Pantoneura fabriciana on the North American coast of the North Atlantic prove to be identical for the three markers that have been sequenced, and the name Membranoptera fabriciana (Lyngbye) comb. nov. is proposed for them. Many collections of Membranoptera from the northeastern North Pacific (predominantly British Columbia), although representing the morphologies of several species that have been previously recognized, are genetically assignable to a single group for which the oldest name applicable is M. platyphylla.

Key words: Cumathamnion; Delesseria; Delesseriaceae; Membranoptera; molecular markers; Pantoneura; Rhodophyta; taxonomy