Abstract
Substratum collected during diving surveys of sublittoral communities off the Greek island of Rhodes (Dodecanese, South-East Aegean) in late 2015 was incubated in the laboratory. Among the emerging macroalgal germlings, there was the second-ever record and isolate of the small benthic multicellular alga Schizocladia ischiensis of the poorly known monotypic Schizocladiophyceae, the sister group of the brown algae (Phaeophyceae). Its nuclear ribosomal small subunit, Rubisco spacer (rbcL, psaA, and psbC sequences (in total 5237 bp)) were similar to those of the only previous isolate of the species from Ischia, western Mediterranean. Our new strain formed branched upright thalli attached to the substratum by an amorphous substance secreted at the bottom of the basal cell. It is possible that S. ischiensis is a common member of the infralittoral and circalittoral communities in the Mediterranean and generally overlooked because of its minute size. Germling emergence appears to represent the method of choice to reveal benthic algae of this small size.
Highlights
Significant gaps remain in the knowledge of the seaweed flora of the Mediterranean, which is regarded as a species-rich region, with 190 green, 277 brown, and 657 red macroalgae recorded so far [1,2]
Arrow points to Ischia where the previous isolate
Arrow points to Ischia where the previous isolate of of of Schizocladia coralline algal debris
Summary
Significant gaps remain in the knowledge of the seaweed flora of the Mediterranean, which is regarded as a species-rich region, with 190 green, 277 brown, and 657 red macroalgae recorded so far [1,2]. Due to the high transparency of the oligotrophic waters in this sea, macroalgae can exist in deep habitats, where coralligenous communities are the most common type of seaweed assemblages [6,7] Another conspicuous community is formed by large brown macroalgae such as Cystoseira and Sargassum species thriving at depths between 20 and 50 m [8,9]. For such smaller algae from the sublittoral, we have recently employed the germling emergence technique, by which macroalgae are obtained from natural substratum incubated in the laboratory [16] This method has been used to reveal the diversity of macroalgae and their microstages, e.g., [17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24]. The only previous collection of this species had been in 1987 from Ischia, Western Mediterranean [25]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
