New records and species of Verosphacela (Onslowiales, Phaeophyceae): Verosphacela ebrachia from Greece, Verosphacela henryi sp. nov. from Rapa Nui and Verosphacela asensii sp. nov. from Ascension Island
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Liliana A. Muñoz
Liliana A. Muñoz is a postdoctoral researcher at the i-mar center, Universidad de Los Lagos, Puerto Montt, Chile. Her MSc (2016; molecular characterization of the marine flora of Easter Island) and PhD (2022; fungal parasites affecting aquaculture facilities in South Africa) are from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. In her current research, she works on the seaweed holobiont by including fungal species inhabiting macroalgae and exploring their potential roles within their host, as well as their biotechnological application in seaweed aquaculture.
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Laura Ridehalgh
Laura Ridehalgh contributed to this manuscript as part of her undergraduate degree at the University of Aberdeen. Laura is currently working for the National Health Service in the UK as a healthcare scientist and is working towards gaining registration as a Clinical Scientist, specialising in Cancer Genomics.
Frithjof C. Küpper has held the Chair in Marine Biodiversity at the University of Aberdeen since 2011, after 8 years at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, studying the biodiversity and biochemistry of marine plants/algae. He found that iodide serves as an inorganic antioxidant in kelp, the first described from a living system, impacting atmospheric and marine chemistry. A certified scientific diver, Frithjof has worked in the Mediterranean, South Atlantic (Ascension, Falklands), Antarctica, the Arctic and the Arabian Gulf.
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Akira F. Peters
Akira F. Peters is a retired scientist. Since the beginning of his scientific career in 1980 he has worked on life histories, taxonomy, phylogenetics, ecology, pathology, genetics, development, cultivation and utilisation of marine algae. He has a PhD from Konstanz University, Germany, directs the enterprise Bezhin Rosko and lives near Roscoff in Brittany, France. He coined the term “germling emergence technique” for isolation of seaweeds from incubated substratum.
Abstract
Onslowiales are minute sublittoral marine brown algae found in warm-temperate to tropical regions of the North Atlantic Ocean. Sequences of the plastid-encoded markers psaA, psbC, rbcL and the Rubisco spacer of a strain of Verosphacela from Greece, previously identified as Verosphacela silvae, were highly similar to sequences of Verosphacela ebrachia from Florida, extending the distribution of the species to the Mediterranean and suggesting re-examination of the morphologically similar V. silvae described from Italy. Two other species were grown from substratum collected in the subtidal of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, subtropical Southeast Pacific) and Ascension Island (tropical Atlantic). According to sequences of the aforementioned markers, they also belong to the Onslowiales, forming a clade with V. ebrachia. They are described here as Verosphacela henryi sp. nov. and Verosphacela asensii sp. nov., respectively. In culture, they consisted of creeping branched filaments growing by means of an apical cell, and subterminal filament cells dividing once longitudinally. V. henryi formed four- to five-celled propagules without apical cells, resembling those of V. ebrachia, whereas V. asensii remained vegetative. V. asensii extends the distribution of the Onslowiales to the central tropical Atlantic, and V. henryi is the first record of the order in the Pacific Ocean.
Funding source: European Commission
Award Identifier / Grant number: ASSEMBLE 227788
Funding source: Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland
Award Identifier / Grant number: HR09011
Funding source: Agence Nationale de la Recherche
Award Identifier / Grant number: IDEALG, ANR-10-BTBR-04
Funding source: Comisión Nacional de Investigación CientÃ-fica y Tecnológica
Award Identifier / Grant number: BCH73140389
About the authors
Liliana A. Muñoz is a postdoctoral researcher at the i-mar center, Universidad de Los Lagos, Puerto Montt, Chile. Her MSc (2016; molecular characterization of the marine flora of Easter Island) and PhD (2022; fungal parasites affecting aquaculture facilities in South Africa) are from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. In her current research, she works on the seaweed holobiont by including fungal species inhabiting macroalgae and exploring their potential roles within their host, as well as their biotechnological application in seaweed aquaculture.
Laura Ridehalgh contributed to this manuscript as part of her undergraduate degree at the University of Aberdeen. Laura is currently working for the National Health Service in the UK as a healthcare scientist and is working towards gaining registration as a Clinical Scientist, specialising in Cancer Genomics.
Frithjof C. Küpper has held the Chair in Marine Biodiversity at the University of Aberdeen since 2011, after 8 years at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, studying the biodiversity and biochemistry of marine plants/algae. He found that iodide serves as an inorganic antioxidant in kelp, the first described from a living system, impacting atmospheric and marine chemistry. A certified scientific diver, Frithjof has worked in the Mediterranean, South Atlantic (Ascension, Falklands), Antarctica, the Arctic and the Arabian Gulf.
Akira F. Peters is a retired scientist. Since the beginning of his scientific career in 1980 he has worked on life histories, taxonomy, phylogenetics, ecology, pathology, genetics, development, cultivation and utilisation of marine algae. He has a PhD from Konstanz University, Germany, directs the enterprise Bezhin Rosko and lives near Roscoff in Brittany, France. He coined the term “germling emergence technique” for isolation of seaweeds from incubated substratum.
Acknowledgments
We appreciate assistance in the field by Melina Marcou (Rapa Nui) and Aldo O. Asensi (Ascension Island), respectively, and in the laboratory by H. Weitz. Thanks are also due to Mike Guiry for a nomenclatural advice.
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Research ethics: Not applicable.
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Informed consent: Not applicable.
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Author contributions: Conceptualization, A.F.P.; methodology, A.F.P.; field work, F.C.K.; software, L.A.M., A.F.P.; validation, A.F.P.; formal analysis, L.A.M., A.F.P.; investigation, A.F.P., L.A.M., L.R.; resources, F.C.K., A.F.P.; data curation, A.F.P., L.A.M.; writing – original draft preparation, A.F.P.; writing – review and editing, A.F.P. and all co-authors; visualization, A.F.P.; supervision, F.C.K., A.F.P.; project administration, A.F.P.; funding acquisition, F.C.K., A.F.P, L.A.M. The authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.
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Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.
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Conflict of interest: The authors state no conflict of interest.
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Research funding: The work of L.A.M. at Aberdeen University was supported by the Chilean government (CONICYT, grant BCH73140389); the work of L.R. was done in the frame of an Honours project. The visit of FCK to Chile was partly funded by the European Commission research infrastructure action under the FP7 ‘capacities’ specific programme ASSEMBLE (grant no. 227788). Also, the MASTS pooling initiative (Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland, funded by the Scottish Funding Council and contributing institutions; grant reference HR09011) is gratefully acknowledged for its support to FCK. AFP received support from the project IDEALG (France: ANR-10-BTBR-04).
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Data availability: DNA sequences were submitted to the public database (Genbank/ENA/DDBJ).
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