• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
• /
• v.21 no.10
• /
• pp.27.1-27.5
• /
• 2018

During a survey of marine algal flora, two gigartinalean species were collected from Pohang and Youngdeok located on the eastern coast of Korea. They share the generic morphological features of Dumontia. One is characterized by cylindrical to complanate thallus with multi- and uniaxial structure, somewhat inflated and contorted branches, and hollow medulla and cortex consisting of progressively smaller cells outwards. The other shows basically the same features as the former species but was smaller in size, as having 4-7 cm in thallus length and 1-2 mm in branch width rather than 15 and 2-5 mm. Both species are distinguished from each other only by these morphometric features. However, it is supported by molecular analysis that both species are genetically distinct. In a phylogenetic tree based on internal transcribed spacer sequence, the two species nest in the same clade as Dumontia contorta and D. alaskana, respectively. The genetic distance between both sequences within the clade was calculated as 0.0 0.2%, considered to be intra-specific for Dumontia. Based on the morphological and molecular analyses, the two Korean species are identified as D. contorta and D. alaskana described originally from Netherlands and Alaska, respectively. This is the first record of the two Dumontia species in Korea.