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Kappaphycus alvarezii (Gigartinales, Rhodophyta) cultivated in Brazil: is it only one species?

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Abstract

Kappaphycus alvarezii which is endemic to the Indo-Pacific region is the main raw material for kappa carrageenan production. A seedling that was cultivated in Japan (originally from the Philippines) was introduced in a trial, for aquaculture purpose, in 1995, in São Paulo State, southeastern region of Brazil. It was later introduced in Santa Catarina State, in Southern Brazil. In 1998, another seedling that was brought from Venezuela, also originally from the Philippines, was commercially introduced at Ilha Grande Bay and later on at Sepetiba Bay, both in Rio de Janeiro State. The aim of this study was to characterize 21 samples from different farms (Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina States) and verify if they are K. alvarezii or other species. Based on the intergenic spacer cox2-3 sequences, phylogenetic relationships were inferred through neighbor joining, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian analyses. The topology of the trees suggests that all samples from the different farms form a monophyletic group of K. alvarezii. Statistical analysis of the cox2-3 marker calculated with median-joining network showed 38 variable positions defining 15 haplotypes for the studied samples of Kappaphycus. The most frequent K. alvarezii haplotype grouped the samples cultivated worldwide with the Brazilian samples. These results are important for better productivity and are environmentally desirable for introduction purposes since the species introduced is known and will help focusing the research on this species. This knowledge can be of assistance to the government in setting up environmental and cultivation protocols to achieve sustainability in macroalgae aquaculture.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank FAPERJ and CNPq for granting financial support, to Dr. Leila Hayashi for providing K. alvarezii specimens from experimental farms located at Santa Catarina State, to Ondas Biomar Cultivo de Algas Ltda and MD Algam for specimens cultivated in Rio de Janeiro State, and to Rafael Rodrigues Loureiro for his comments in the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Botânica, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rua Prof. Rodolpho P. Rocco, 211, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, CEP 21941-902, Brazil

    Maria Beatriz Barbosa de Barros-Barreto

  2. Departamento de Botânica, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, BR-465, Seropédica, RJ, 23890-000, Brazil

    Luciana Cavalcante Marinho

  3. Diretoria de Pesquisa Científica, Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, Rua Pacheco Leão, 915, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 22030-002, Brazil

    Renata Perpétuo Reis & Camila Souza da Mata

  4. Instituto de Bioquímica Médica, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rua Prof. Rodolpho P. Rocco, 211, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, CEP 21941-902, Brazil

    Paulo Cavalcante Gomes Ferreira

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  1. Maria Beatriz Barbosa de Barros-Barreto
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  2. Luciana Cavalcante Marinho
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  3. Renata Perpétuo Reis
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  4. Camila Souza da Mata
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  5. Paulo Cavalcante Gomes Ferreira
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Correspondence to Maria Beatriz Barbosa de Barros-Barreto.

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de Barros-Barreto, M.B.B., Marinho, L.C., Reis, R.P. et al. Kappaphycus alvarezii (Gigartinales, Rhodophyta) cultivated in Brazil: is it only one species?. J Appl Phycol 25, 1143–1149 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-012-9952-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-012-9952-8

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