Morphological variation and intraspecific phylogeny of the ubiquitous species Chara braunii (Charales, Charophyceae) in Japan

Abstract

S. Kato, H. Sakayama, S. Sano, F. Kasai, M.M. Watanabe, J. Tanaka and H. Nozaki. 2008. Morphological variation and intraspecific phylogeny of the ubiquitous species Chara braunii (Charales, Charophyceae) in Japan. Phycologia 47: 191–202. DOI: 10.2216/07-27.1

Chara braunii is a charalean species that grows in a range of aquatic habitats from shallow water in paddy fields to the bottom of deep lakes. More than 30 infraspecific taxa have been proposed within this species because of its morphological variability. In order to reexamine the infraspecific taxa and habitat preference of C. braunii, we carried out molecular phylogenetic analyses and quantitative measurements of morphological characters used for infraspecific taxa, based on samples collected from various habitats and localities in Japan. Sequence data from the gene encoding the large subunit of Rubisco (rbcL) and the intergenic spacer regions between the beta subunit of the ATP synthase and rbcL genes demonstrated two robust clades (groups A and B). Samples of group A were collected mainly from shallow aquatic environments (< 15 cm in depth) such as paddy fields, while those of group B were mainly composed of samples found in deep aquatic environments (> 1 m in depth) such as lakes or ponds. Groups A and B therefore seem to represent closely related entities that have recently differentiated and might adapt to two different aquatic environments. However, the morphological measurements suggested these groups can be delineated by neither of the traditional diagnoses that were different between infraspecific taxa of Japanese plants of C. braunii.

Key Words::

• Aquatic habitat
• Chara braunii
• Charales
• Charophyceae
• Intergenic spacer region
• Intraspecific phylogeny
• Morphological variation
• rbcL gene

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Corrigenda

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Prof. Masahiro Kato (National Science Museum, Japan) for his kind advice, Dr Yuji Isagi (Kyoto University, Japan) and Mr Takenori Kawabata (University of Marine Science and Technology, Japan) for their kind guidance in field collection and Dr Fumio Takahashi (Tohoku University, Japan) for his helpful advice. This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Creative Scientific Research (No. 16GS0304 to HN) and by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. 17370087 to HN) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.

Corrigenda

Corrections to paper by Syou Kato, Hidetoshi Sakayama, Satomi Sano, Fumie Kasa, Makoto M. Watanabe, Jiro Tanaka and Hisayoshi Nozaki (2008). Morphological variation and intraspecies phylogeny of the ubiquitous species Chara braunii (Charales, Charophyceae) in Japan. Phycologia 47(2): 191-202.

The DOI number for this article was incorrect and should read as follows: DOI: 10.2216/07-27.1.

The image of Figure 5 was reversed. The correct image appears below.