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Taxonomy of Australian Seagrasses

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Seagrasses of Australia

Abstract

This chapter lists all Australian seagrass species with their synonyms, which are currently accepted by the IPNI (International Plant Name Index) and the Plant List; the world authority of plant taxonomy. It also briefly reviews taxonomic studies on the Australian seagrasses and includes keys to all Australian seagrass species, with the practical goal of providing botanists with a name for seagrass species based on morphological characteristics. With their limited range of morphological characters, even constructing a morphological key presents some difficulties. The Australian waters are rich in seagrass species (33), with more than one third of the described seagrass species in the world. The majority of Australian temperate species are endemic, while those occurring in Australian tropics are also distributed in the Indo-Pacific region. Where possible we consider the results of molecular phylogenies but at present these are incomplete, and have only focused on a limited range of species.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Microscopy, Microanalysis and Characterization, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    John Kuo

  2. The Oceans Institute and School of Plant Biology, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Marion L. Cambridge

  3. Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research, James Cook University, Cairns Campus, 14-88 McGregor Road Smithfield, PO Box 6811, Cairns, QLD, 4878, Australia

    Len J. McKenzie & Robert G. Coles

Authors
  1. John Kuo
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  2. Marion L. Cambridge
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  3. Len J. McKenzie
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  4. Robert G. Coles
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Kuo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Anthony W. D. Larkum

  2. School of Biological Sciences and the Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Autralia, Australia

    Gary A. Kendrick

  3. Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Peter J. Ralph

Appendix

Appendix

The editors take the opportunity to include as an Appendix a “Taxonomy of Australian Seagrasses”, which sets out a taxonomy based on classical taxonomic criteria. Molecular techniques have provided a new way of classifying organisms and this has happened to some extent with seagrasses. Chapter 5 presents much of this recent evidence and discusses the issues. Of particular relevance here is the issue over the previous seagrass genus Heterozostera (Zosteraceae). According to some experts, Heterozostera cannot be supported any more and should be merged into the genus Zostera (see Les et al. 2002; Jacobs and Les 2009). Les et al. (2002) looked only at Heterozoster tasmanica, and concluded that it should be transferred to Zostera as a sub-genus, Heterozostera. However, Jacobs and Les (2009) assumed that Heterozostera tasmanica was so difficult to separate from the other two Heterozostera species, that they chose not to recognise it as a separate species, leaving only Z. nigricaulis and Z. polychlamys as legitimate Australian species. If this were followed there would be 3 new Zostera species, Z. chilensis (from Chile), Z. nigricaulis (formerly Heterozostera nigricaulis and H. tasmanica; from Australia) and Z. polychlamys, (formerly Heterozostera polychlamy; from Australia) all of which would be placed in the sub-genus Heterozostera. This new approach has not been adopted by all Australian authorities but the International Plant Name Index prefers not to recognise the genus Heterozostera. Some workers, including the authors of the Appendix still advocate Heterozostera tasmanica.

Notwithstanding this difference in opinions the Appendix presents much useful taxonomic and systematic information together with keys of the Australian seagrass and pseudo-seagrass species, which will be very useful to Australian seagrass workers.

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Kuo, J., Cambridge, M.L., McKenzie, L.J., Coles, R.G. (2018). Taxonomy of Australian Seagrasses. In: Larkum, A., Kendrick, G., Ralph, P. (eds) Seagrasses of Australia. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71354-0_23

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