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Phenotypic plasticity and taxonomy of Cladophora gracilis (Griffiths) Kützing (Cladophorales, Chlorophyta) in the western Yellow Sea with the implication of its DNA barcode

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Abstract

Due to extensive morphological plasticity, the taxonomy of Cladophora species remains unclear. As one of the widely distributed species, C. gracilis was reported to hold many varieties, which make it difficult to identify the species. This study explored the morphology diversity of nine C. gracilis samples collected along the coast of western Yellow Sea. Some samples showed extremely varied characteristics, by which one cannot classify them correctly. Hence, 18S rDNA and nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer regions (ITS) sequences were employed to delimit species. For 18S rDNA, sequence similarity ranged from 99.6% to 100%. For ITS region, the similarity ranged from 98.7% to 100%. Molecular data strongly suggested that the morphologically heterogeneous samples were actually the same species. Characteristics comparison of the samples revealed that the taxonomy criteria including branching pattern and density, thallus color, height and texture varied widely, influenced by environmental conditions and age of alga. Besides, cell dimensions, as the relatively stable criterion, also exhibited intraspecific variance. Successful application of 18S rDNA and ITS sequences indicated that molecular method can be a powerful assistant as DNA barcodes to traditional morphology taxonomy.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Saren Gaowa, Wei Zhang, Tao Wang, Chunmei Bao for their kind laboratory technical assistance, and the members of marine biological museum of IOCAS for their help.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collage of Life Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, 300387, China

    Bingxin Huang, Jingjing Jiang & Lanping Ding

  2. Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Bingxin Huang, Linhong Teng & Lanping Ding

  3. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Animal and Plant Resistance, Tianjin, 300387, China

    Bingxin Huang, Jingjing Jiang & Lanping Ding

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  1. Bingxin Huang
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  2. Linhong Teng
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  3. Jingjing Jiang
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  4. Lanping Ding
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Correspondence to Lanping Ding.

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Foundation item

The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 31670199, 31400186 and 30499340; the Knowledge Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences under contract No. KSCX2-YW-Z-018; the Scientific Research Plan of Tianjin Municipal Education Committee under contract No. JW1705; the Research Fund for Talented Scholars of Tianjin Normal University (2016).

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Huang, B., Teng, L., Jiang, J. et al. Phenotypic plasticity and taxonomy of Cladophora gracilis (Griffiths) Kützing (Cladophorales, Chlorophyta) in the western Yellow Sea with the implication of its DNA barcode. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 39, 162–170 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-020-1586-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-020-1586-0

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