• ALGAE
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.101-109
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• 2014

Small red algae, especially those previously referred to as 'primitive' are often overlooked, but can be quite abundant. These 'primitive' red algae are now placed in several classes distinct from the Florideophyceae, for example the Stylonematophyceae. A brownish-red filamentous alga was collected from a sandy tide pool at Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia. Cultured specimens were identified as Bangiopsis and conformed to the morphological characters of the genus (multicellular base, erect filaments branched or unbranched, uniseriate to multiseriate-tubular, single multilobed purple-red to red-brown plastid with central pyrenoid, vegetative cells released directly as spores). Molecular data of two plastid genes (rbcL, psbA) support placement of the Australian isolate and isolates from India in Bangiopsis. The genetic variation between these isolates and isolates from Puerto Rico previously attributed to B. subsimplex indicates that these should be considered as a separate species. As the type locality is in the Atlantic Ocean, French Guiana, and not far from Puerto Rico, and the Puerto Rican isolate has been used often in phylogenetic analyses, we propose that the Indian and Pacific Ocean isolates be designated a new species, B. franklynottii, to acknowledge Ott's many years of research on inconspicuous freshwater and marine red algae. Our research also highlights the lack of careful descriptions in many of the records of this genus and the lack of morphological characters to distinguish species. Especially within the morphologically simple red algae, morphological distinctness does not necessarily reflect evolutionary divergences.

• ALGAE
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.289-301
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• 2016

Floating debris provides substrates for dispersal of organisms by ocean currents, including algae that thrive on plastics. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tohuku, Japan resulted in large amounts of debris carried by the North Pacific Current to North America from 2012 to 2016. In 2015-2016, the plastics in the debris bore a complex biota including pink algal crusts. One sample (JAW4874) was isolated into culture and a three-gene phylogeny (psbA, rbcL, and SSU) indicated it was an unknown member of the red algal class Stylonematophyceae. It is a small pulvinate crust of radiating, branched, uniseriate filaments with cells containing a single centrally suspended nucleus and a single purple to pink, multi-lobed, parietal plastid lacking a pyrenoid. Cells can be released as spores that attach and germinate to form straight filaments by transverse apical cell divisions, and subsequent longitudinal and oblique intercalary divisions produce masses of lateral branches. This alga is named Tsunamia transpacifica gen. nov. et sp. nov. Sequencing of additional samples of red algal crusts on plastics revealed another undescribed Stylonematophycean species, suggesting that these algae may be frequent on drift oceanic plastics.

• ALGAE
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.71-90
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• 2019

A new encrusting red alga was found growing abundantly on glass debris items that drifted ashore along the coasts of Oregon and Washington. These included discarded fluorescent tubes, incandescent light bulbs, capped liquor bottles, and ball-shaped fishing-net floats. Field collections and unialgal cultures of the alga revealed that it consisted of two morphological phases: a young loosely aggregated turf and a mature consolidated mucilaginous crust. The turf phase consisted of a basal layer of globose cells that produced erect, rarely branched, uniseriate to multiseriate filaments up to $500{\mu}m$ long with closely spaced cells lacking pit-plugs. These filaments expanded in size from their bases to their tips and released single cells as spores. At maturity, a second phase of growth occurred that produced a consolidated crust, up to $370{\mu}m$ thick. It consisted of a basal layer of small, tightly appressed ellipsoidal-to-elongate cells that generated a mucilaginous perithallial matrix containing a second type of filament with irregularly spaced cells often undergoing binary division. At the matrix surface, the original filaments continued to grow and release spores but often also eroded. Individual cells, examined using confocal microscopy and SYBR Green staining, were found to contain a central nucleus, a single highly lobed peripheral chloroplast without a pyrenoid, and numerous chloroplast nucleoids. Morphological data from field and culture isolates and molecular data (rbcL, psbA, and SSU) show that this alga is a new genus and species which we name Viator vitreocola, "a traveller on glass."