Morphology of Ecklonia radiata (Phaeophyta: Laminarales) along its geographic distribution in south-western Australia and Australasia

Document Type

Journal Article

Publisher

Springer

Faculty

Faculty of Computing, Health and Science

School

Computing, Health and Science Faculty Office

RAS ID

6517

Comments

Wernberg, T., Coleman, M., Fairhead, A., Miller, S., & Thomsen, M. (2003). Morphology of Ecklonia radiata (Phaeophyta: Laminarales) along its geographic distribution in south-western Australia and Australasia. Marine Biology, 143(1), 47-55.

Abstract

Ecklonia radiata (C. Ag.) J. Agardh is a common macroalga on reefs in the warm-temperate parts of the southern hemisphere. It is a dominant habitat-former and as such has a strong structuring effect on associated algal assemblages. Morphological variation in E. radiata potentially affects its interactions with the surroundings and contributes to confusion about its taxonomy. We quantified the magnitude of morphological variation in fully developed E. radiata sporophytes across Australasia and tested the hypotheses that E. radiata has different morphology at different locations and that the degree of morphological difference depends on spatial distances among locations. A total of 11 morphological characters were sampled from 11 locations along the Australian coastline from Kalbarri in Western Australia to Sydney in New South Wales as well as from Doubtful Sound, New Zealand. Most morphological characters varied considerably from one location to another. For example, the average (±SE) thallus length was 135.2±12.5 cm in Kalbarri and only 69.7±5.5 cm in Sydney. There were no consistent spatial patterns of variation among individual morphological characters, and, generally, variations among individual characters were poorly correlated (−0.5

DOI

10.1007/s00227-003-1069-9

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1007/s00227-003-1069-9