Abstract
Alaria esculenta is an important kelp species in northern Europe, Atlantic Canada and USA and the Arctic, with high economic potential. Microspongium alariae, a brown algal endophyte using A. esculenta as host, is reported for the first time from Scotland (Great Britain) and Brittany (France), suggesting a wide distribution in NW Europe. The alga was found growing epi-endophytically in A. esculenta stipes and was occasionally associated with warts. Isolated Microspongium thalli grew in host-free cultures and formed plurilocular sporangia in a broad range of temperature and irradiance conditions. DNA barcoding using the nuclear ribosomal ITS1, the mitochondrial COI and the plastidial rbcL confirmed the identity of the endophyte as M. alariae. Electron microscopy was used to compare the alga when endophytic in Alaria with a host-free culture. As an endophyte, cell diameter, pyrenoid diameter and cell wall thickness were reduced. In contrast, there were more plasmodesma connections between endophyte cells, possibly to enhance nutrient transport along the endophytic thallus. In the light of this evidence, a parasitic life style is considered unlikely for the species and the adaptive value of endophytism in M. alariae remains to be elucidated.
About the authors
Pedro Murúa is a former research associate at the Instituto de Acuicultura of the Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh), where he worked on various aspects of seaweed biology, particularly kelp ecology and mariculture. Pedro got his PhD at the University of Aberdeen in 2018. During his postgraduate studies, Pedro worked on the characterization of new algal pathosystems from cell and molecular biology perspectives. Currently, Pedro is a postdoctoral research assistant in molecular algal pathology, Scottish Association for Marine Science.
Frithjof C. Küpper has held the Chair in Marine Biodiversity at the University of Aberdeen (Oceanlab) since 2011. Over the past 27 years, he has studied the biodiversity and biochemistry of marine plants/algae – especially abiotic and biotic stress. He conducted graduate studies at Roscoff and Konstanz for a joint French-German PhD. His research resulted in the finding of iodide serving as an inorganic antioxidant in kelp, the first described from a living system, impacting atmospheric and marine chemistry. A certified scientific diver, Frithjof has worked extensively in the Eastern Mediterranean, South Atlantic (Ascension and Falkland Islands), but also in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Canadian Arctic for algal diversity-related projects.
Liliana A. Muñoz is a PhD student at the University of Aberdeen (UoA). She got her BSc in 2009 working with the mariculture of the giant kelp (Universidad Austral de Chile), and her MSc in 2016, studying cryptic algal biodiversity from Easter Island (UoA). Presently, Liliana is working on the molecular characterization of parasitic stramenopiles of marine molluscs.
Miriam Bernard is a PhD candidate at Roscoff Marine Station. She obtained her Master’s degree from the University of Bonn and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven working on the impact of global change and interspecific competition on Arctic kelps. Her current research focusses on the interaction of kelps with filamentous algal endophytes.
Akira F. Peters is a gentleman scientist in his enterprise Bezhin Rosko at Santec, Brittany, France. He obtained a PhD from Konstanz University in 1986. He likes macroalgae, with a research focus on brown algae, and has worked as post-doc, assistant and associate university professor in Chile, the Netherlands, Germany and France. He is a member of the Marine Biological Association (MBA) and honorary research fellow at the University of Aberdeen.
Acknowledgements
We greatly appreciated field assistance by Martina Strittmatter (SAMS), Françoise Duchemin and Elodie Gahinet (ALEOR) for sampling at Seil Island and Ile Grande, respectively, technical support during laboratory experiments by Dawn Shewring (Oceanlab) and Debbie Wilkinson (Aberdeen Microscopy Facility), and comments from Aldo Asensi regarding TEM. PM was funded by Conicyt (BecasChile no. 41972130422) for PhD studies at the University of Aberdeen, and by the NERC IOF Pump-priming (GlobalSeaweed, scheme NE/L013223/1) for activities at the Scottish Association for Marine Sciences. Endophyte isolation and identification in Brittany was facilitated by the projects IDEALG (France: ANR-10-BTBR-04) and ALFF, respectively. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement number 624575. We are also grateful for funding from the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland). MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions.
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