Four new species of Porphyra (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) from the New Zealand region described using traditional characters and 18S rDNA sequence data

Four new species of the genus Porphyra (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) from the New Zealand region are described: P. cinnamomea W.A. Nelson, R coleana W.A. Nelson, P. rakiura W.A. Nelson and R virididentata W.A. Nelson. These species are monostromatic, monoecious, and grow in the intertidal zone, predominantly on rock substrata. They can be distinguished from each other by traditional characters including morphology (particularly the microscopic arrangement of cells along the thallus margin, thallus shape, size and colour), geographical, ecological and seasonal distribution patterns, and chromosome numbers (P. cinnamomea n = 3, R coleana n = 4, P. rakiura n = 2, R virididentata n = 3). These four species can be distinguished by a unique nucleotide sequence at the 18S rDNA locus: they can be separated on the basis of a subset of approximately 500 bp of 18S rDNA sequence data downstream of primer G06, corresponding to variable region V9. This constitutes an important taxonomic character. These four species are known currently solely from the New Zealand region. (C) 2001 Adac/Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.