Abstract
We reevaluated species diversity of the brown alga Lobophora in Vietnam’s Con Co Marine Protected Area (MPA), where only one species had previously been reported. Integrating morphological, ecological, and molecular analyses, we redefined the genus diversity, identifying nine species including two new ones: L. asiatica, L. boussoleae, L. lamourouxii, L. obscura1, L. pachyventera3, L. thailandensis, L. quangtriensis sp. nov., L. vietnamensis sp. nov., and Lobophora sp.1VNA. Lobophora variegata, the sole species previously reported, was absent. This study expands the number of Vietnam’s documented Lobophora species to 11. This work reevaluated Lobophora diversity in Vietnam based on a small island, contributing valuable seaweed diversity reference data for Con Co MPA management. Notably, within the MPA, Lobophora species exhibited no coral-aggressiveness, potentially serving as a health indicator for coral reef communities.
About the authors
Duc Tien Dam is an associate professor in the Department of Marine Botany and Ecology, Institute of Marine Environment and Resources, and a University Lecturer at Haiphong University of Medicine and Pharmacy. His expertise focuses on diversity and distribution of the algae along Vietnam Coast and South China Sea.
Manh Linh Nguyen is a PhD student in Botany at Graduate University of Science and Technology, and a researcher at Institute of Marine Environment and Resources. His current research is focused on morphology, molecular systematics and population genetics of green, red and brown macroalgae in the South China Sea, as well as bioactive compounds of cryptophyte algae.
Myung-Sook Kim is a professor at the Department of Biology, and the director of the Research Institute for Basic Sciences at Jeju National University, Korea. She received a PhD in algal systematics from the Seoul National University, Korea for her research on the taxonomic revision of Polysiphonia. She has been studying the phylogeny of Rhodophyta for a long time, and recently focused on genetic diversity using DNA barcodes of seaweeds for accurate identification of species.
Christophe Vieira is a researcher at Jeju National University, Jeju, South Korea. His research work initially focused on seaweeds ecology in coral reef systems, and expanded to the study of seaweeds diversity, taxonomy, phylogenetics, biogeography and evolution. His research uses molecular, morphological, ecological and geographical data to study seaweed global biodiversity, historical biogeography, and evolution, with a focus on brown algae.
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Research ethics: Not applicable.
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Author contributions: The authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.
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Competing interests: The authors state no competing of interest.
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Research funding: This work was supported by the project “Study on species diversity of the genus Lobophora (Dictyotaceae) in the west coast of the Gulf of Tonkin” (code: KHCBBI.01/22–24), and by the Basic Science Research Program (2019R1A6A1A10072987) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education of Korea. Vingroup Innovation Foundation (VinIF grant no. VINIF.2022.DA00079) granted isotype herbarium numbers.
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Data availability: The raw data can be obtained on request from the corresponding author.
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Supplementary Material
This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/bot-2023-0047).
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