Taxonomic changes in the Lomentariaceae (Rhodymeniales, Rhodophyta): Yendoa gen. nov. and Ceratodictyon sanctae-crucis sp. nov.

ABSTRACT

The Lomentariaceae, previously treated as subfamily Lomentarioideae in the family Champiaceae, is one of the six families currently classified in the Rhodymeniales. Relationships within the family are not well-established, and new genera have been segregated from Lomentaria, a notoriously polyphyletic taxon as currently circumscribed. The lack of access to molecular data of type specimens has limited the taxonomic clarifications within the Lomentariaceae. Using new collections from Brazil, historical collections and data available in GenBank, we generated rbcL and COI-5P phylogenies of the Lomentariaceae, and we used species delimitation methods to assess the species-level diversity among sequences. A nuclear LSU rDNA phylogeny, although less representative in number of taxa, confirmed our findings. Our results recovered Ceratodictyon and Semnocarpa as monophyletic, whereas Lomentaria was polyphyletic. Integrating phylogenetic analyses, analyses of genetic variance, and morphological analyses, we revealed a new species, Ceratodictyon sanctae-crucis sp. nov., collected on the coast of Bahia (northeastern Brazil). Having included a newly generated sequence of the holotype of Lomentaria sinensis, a heterotypic synonym of L. hakodatensis, and a sequence from a sample collected near the type locality of L. hakodatensis, we propose the new genus Yendoa gen. nov. to accommodate this species. Our results support a more phylogenetically coherent taxonomic scheme for the Lomentariaceae, which now includes only monophyletic genera.

KEYWORDS:

• COI-5P
• Lomentaria hakodatensis
• Molecular phylogeny
• Nuclear-encoded LSU rDNA
• rbcL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank the Charles Davis’ lab at Harvard University Herbaria for the infrastructure for obtaining plastid and mitochondrial sequences from Ceratodictyon intricatum and Lomentaria sinensis. We thank Prof. Dr. Tsuyoshi Abe of The Hokkaido University Museum and the director of the Faculty of Science Hokkaido University’s herbarium, Prof. Dr. Kazuhiro Kogame, for sending us the digital images of the lectotype of Lomentaria hakodatensis. We also thank the reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00318884.2022.2133269

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) under Grant 555 ‘Finance Code 001’. We thank Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa da Bahia (FAPESB – RED 0006/2012; T.O. INT0001_2016), Programa de Apoio a Núcleos Emergentes (PRONEM TO PNE 0020/2011) and São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP – 2018/06085-1). CCS thanks Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa da Bahia (FAPESB – T.O.B., N° BOL0416/2017) for a scholarship. VC and JMCN thank Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) 304141/2020-8, 308542/2018-5 for Productivity Fellowships, 304141/2020-8 and 308542/2018-5, respectively.