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Abstract
Morphological and molecular evidence is provided to further document the status of the enigmatic taxon known as Caulerpa floridana W.R. Taylor from White Shoal, Dry Tortugas, Florida. DNA sequencing of three historical herbarium specimens (WRT329, WRT345 and WRT349) housed at the University of Michigan Herbarium (MICH) demonstrated the molecular separation of this species based on the reconstruction of 931 nucleotides of the chloroplast gene tufA. Caulerpa floridana is sister to the western Atlantic endemic C. ashmeadii Harvey and an unknown Caulerpa taxon from the Florida Middle Grounds. Caulerpa floridana most reliably differs from C. ashmeadii by the presence of a sharp, unequivocal apiculus at the tip of each pinnule. A morphological review of southwestern Atlantic records of C. floridana from Brazil excludes these reports as representative of the species.
Acknowledgements
TS is indebted to the Link Foundation/Smithsonian Marine Station 2013 Fellowship Award for funding residency in Florida and at SMS for the completion of this research. TS is thankful to Rahul Ukey and Drs A. Chistoserdov and W. Schmidt (UL Lafayette), and Drs M. Boyle, N. Engene and J. Sneed (SMS) for technical and/or field assistance. Dr Ken Karol at NY is thanked for uploading an image of the isotype of Caulerpa floridana to the C.V. Starr Virtual Herbarium. We thank Dr James Norris and Barrett Brooks at US for discussion on deep Caulerpa taxa and interest in the study, as well as Dr Willem Prud’homme van Reine and an anonymous reviewer for comments on the manuscript. SF greatly acknowledges support from NSF DEB-0936855 and The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI-I). This is SMS contribution No. 960.