Abstract
Molecular investigations have raised concerns about the ecological risks of green tides caused by alien Ulva species in new habitats. The green tide-forming species U. californica Wille was generally considered to be native to North America, but new records have been widely reported in Europe, Asia, and Oceania in recent decades, indicating a strong dispersal capacity of the species. In this study, the first record of U. californica on the coastline of mainland China was reported, following a combined identification with multi-molecular markers and morphological characterization. It was shown that this species has a discontinuous distribution pattern along the coast of mainland China, with northern populations in the Yellow Sea and southern populations in the East China Sea and South China Sea. According to results of examination for life cycles and identification with mating type (MT) genetic markers, it was indicated that all U. californica samples were male gametophytes, and reproduced themselves through parthenogenesis solely. Combined with the fact that southern and northern populations are highly genetically identical, here we believed that U. californica was a recent alien species to mainland China with a rapid local spread. This finding provided evidences that the ability to reproduce in a variety of ways may play an important role in the spread of Ulva species, as well as essential basic data for marine risk management of green tides in China. In addition, according to the phylogeographic analysis, the possible geographical origin and global dispersal routes of U. californica were also proposed.
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Supported by the Science & Technology Basic Resources Investigation Program of China (No. 2018FY100205), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41776153), the Key Deployment Project of Centre for Ocean Mega-Research of Science, Chinese Academy of Science (No. COMS2019Q05), the Key R&D Program of Shandong Province (No. 2019GSF107012), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA23050302)
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The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Wei, X., Liu, W., Lin, X. et al. First record of Ulva californica in the mainland of China: a single alien parthenogenetic population in discontinuous distribution. J. Ocean. Limnol. 40, 2343–2353 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-022-1392-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-022-1392-y