Rhodachlya westii sp. nov. (Rhodachlyales, Rhodophyta), a new species from Brazil, revealed by an integrative taxonomic approach

ABSTRACT

A small red alga was isolated into culture from rhodoliths collected on the Piauí coast, northeastern Brazil. Molecular data from the plastid-encoded rbcL gene, combined with morphological and ultrastructural evidence, demonstrated that it belongs to the genus Rhodachlya and supports the proposal of a new species, R. westii. The new species was characterised by basal and erect uniseriate filaments, cells with parietal H-shaped or lobed plastids with one or two prominent pyrenoids, absence of unicellular hairs, and with monosporangia sessile or on branched stalks. Ultrastructure revealed pit plugs with two cap layers without a cap membrane, typical of Rhodachlyales. In our rbcL phylogeny, R. westii sp. nov. was recovered in a well-supported clade containing R. hawaiiana and R. madagascarensis (generitype) with interspecific divergence ranging from 5% to 10%, respectively. Characters previously used for species-level taxonomy (e.g. cell dimensions, number of pyrenoids and presence or absence of colourless hairs) are often plastic and overlap. We conclude that Rhodachlya species can be accurately identified only based on DNA sequence data and their geographic distribution. Rhodachlya westii becomes the third species of the genus, representing the first record in the Atlantic Ocean. Our data suggest that the genus is probably widely distributed. In view of the scarcity of reliable morphological features available for comparison, molecular-assisted alpha taxonomy is needed for uncovering the long-overlooked diversity in this red algal group.

KEYWORDS:

• Cryptic species
• Nemaliophycidae
• Phylogeny
• Pit plug ultrastructure
• rbcL
• Species delimitation

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the National Center for Structural Biology and Bioimaging (CENABIO, UFRJ) and Dra. Marcia Attias, from the Institute of Biophysics (UFRJ), for assistance with electron microscopy. NSY, MTF and YYV thank the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for the Productivity Fellowship (310672/2016-3, 304899/2017-8 and 304953/2014-8, respectively). We also thank Giuseppe Zuccarello and David Garbary for their valuable comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

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Additional information

Funding

This study was partially funded by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES/AUXPE-CIMAR 1991/2014/23038.001431/2014-75) and the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP 2016/50370-7).