Enhancing species discovery and description in algal turfs: A case study in the green alga Pseudoderbesia (Bryopsidales)

Abstract

Algal turfs are assemblages consisting of small marine green, brown, and red algae on the scale of millimeters to a few centimeters. Due to their small size, they have been less intensively studied by macroalgal taxonomists, and they also fall outside the scope of microalgal taxonomists, who tend to focus on smaller, often unicellular, taxa. They often have a rather simple structure and a tendency to converge onto similar morphologies with creeping and upright axes. Because of all of this, there is a substantial amount of undocumented algal biodiversity in turfs, as has been shown in several molecular surveys. Our aim in this paper was to explore some integrative taxonomic methods that could..