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Morphological and genetic analyses of the current major cultivars of Undaria pinnatifida at Lvshun, Dalian, the principal farming region in North China

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Abstract

Close to 66% of the annual national production of the brown alga Undaria pinnatifida, about 115 thousand tonnes (fresh weight), is produced through farming in Liaoning Province in north China. To clarify the agronomic characters and genetic differences of currently farmed U. pinnatifida, we investigated three major farmed cultivars in combination with other traditional ones focusing specially on sporophylls, one of the principal end products in a typical farm at Lvshun, Dalian city. Results showed that these cultivars differ in timing of maturation and are arranged to be harvested in sequence in the farm to diversify the periods of harvesting and processing. Sporophyll fresh weight and the stipe width are positively correlated with the growth of the plant. Ten neutral microsatellite markers were used to assess relationships among major farmed cultivars. Both genetic distance and Bayesian model-based analyses showed that there was genetic differentiation among C1, C2, and other traditional cultivars. C3 showed the highest genetic variations in major farmed cultivars, with three private alleles and a mean expected heterozygosity of 0.817. In general, prominent genetic divergences were found among different cultivars confirming the effect of consecutive selection, while weak relationships were observed between sporophyll forms and genotypes.

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Abbreviations

TL:

Total length

BL:

Blade length

TW:

Total width

UBW:

Undivided blade width

SW:

Stipe width

SPL:

Sporophyll length

SPW:

Sporophyll width

DSB:

Distance between sporophyll and blade

TFW:

Total fresh weight

SFW:

Sporophyll fresh weight

BA:

Blade area

AGR:

Absolute growth rate

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to M.F. Zhang for his kind help in collecting samples in the chilly winter.

Availability of data and material (data transparency)

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.

Funding

Supported by China Agriculture Research System of MOF and MARA, special supporting programs from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KFJ-BRP-017-27, KFJ-BRP-017-53, CZBZX-1), a program from National Marine Genetic Resource Center and the Taishan Scholar Program of Shandong Province.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 7 Nanhai Rd, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Xiaodong Li, Shaojun Pang, Tifeng Shan, Li Su, Jing Li, Qianxi Li & Xuemei Wang

  2. Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 7 Nanhai Road, Qingdao, 266071, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaodong Li, Shaojun Pang, Tifeng Shan, Li Su, Jing Li, Qianxi Li & Xuemei Wang

  3. Laboratory for Marine Biology and Biotechnology, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, 7 Nanhai Rd, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Xiaodong Li, Shaojun Pang, Tifeng Shan, Li Su, Jing Li, Qianxi Li & Xuemei Wang

  4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xiaodong Li, Qianxi Li & Xuemei Wang

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  1. Xiaodong Li
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Correspondence to Shaojun Pang.

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Supplementary information

Fig. S1

Comparisons of morphological characteristics among three cultivars (C1, C2 and C3). Different small letters indicate significant differences in morphological features among cultivars in the same month (p<0.05) (PNG 2081 kb)

High resolution image (TIF 1.96 mb)

Fig. S2

Spearman rank correlation coefficients of measurements in C1 (a), C2 (b), and C3 (c) (PNG 8950 kb)

High resolution image (TIF 1.26 mb)

Fig. S3

(PNG 5179 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 134 kb)

Fig. S4

The values of deltaK (PNG 3920 kb)

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Fig. S5

Scatter plots of discriminant analyses of principal components (DAPC) that reveal the genetic relationships among the elite cultivars, the traditional cultivars, and new cultivars of Undaria pinnatifida (PNG 709 kb)

High resolution image (TIF 1.16 mb)

Table S1

(DOCX 23.4 kb)

Table S2

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Li, X., Pang, S., Shan, T. et al. Morphological and genetic analyses of the current major cultivars of Undaria pinnatifida at Lvshun, Dalian, the principal farming region in North China. J Appl Phycol 33, 3251–3260 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-021-02489-x

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