Isolation and genetic characterization of self-sterile mutants in a monoecious red alga Gelidium vagum (Gelidiales, Rhodophyta)

Abstract

Sporelings of the monoecious red alga Gelidium vagum were placed into 4500 individual cultures after treatment with the chemical mutagen nitrosoguanidine and raised to sexual maturity to search for reproductive mutants. Isolates undergoing normal self-fertilization were discarded, leaving approximately 250 self-sterile plants and mutants with abnormal reproduction or reproductive structures. Self-sterile mutants were tested further in crosses to a fertile green marker stock. From the results, many mutants appeared to be either male-sterile, female-sterile or unable to form carposporophytes. Although sufficient data on the inheritance pattern of the self-sterile mutants are available for only a few of the isolates, some apparently stable sterility mutations with simple Mendelian transmission were identified. Preliminary testing of one of the male-sterile mutations confirmed that it effectively eliminated self-fertilization and facilitated the formation of hybrid plants in crosses.