Development of high-resolution chloroplast markers for intraspecific phylogeographic studies of Phaeocystis globosa

Phaeocystis globosa is an important harmful algal bloom causative species distributing widely in temperate and tropical coastal waters in the world. The morphological, physiological, and biochemical characteristics are different among geographic strains, which can not be distinguished with nuclear ribosomal DNA markers at present. Therefore, the genetic distance and phylogeographic relationships of nuclear 28S rDNA D1-D2 and ITS regions, and three chloroplast intergenic spacers (petN-trnS1, trnM1-psbA, and rbcS-rpl27) were analyzed and compared among 13 strains of P. globosa isolated from the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean in this study. In addition, the nucleotide polymorphisms of 28S rDNA D1-D2, ITS, and rbcS-rpl27 regions were evaluated in two P. globosa strains. The various levels of nucleotide polymorphism were in the nuclear 28S rDNA D1-D2 region and ITS region, but no polymorphism was in the chloroplast rbcS-rpl27 intergenic spacer. A reasonable intraspecific phylogeographic relationship was presented by rbcS-rpl27 intergenic spacer, which had the strongest distinction to geographic strains compared to those of 28S rDNA D1-D2 and ITS regions. In the phylogenetic tree of rbcS-rpl27 intergenic spacer, the two strains from the North Sea of the Atlantic Ocean were divided firstly from the species of P. globosa, and then formed an independent clade, while the other Atlantic strains and all of Pacific strains joined up to build the other clade. It was implied that at least two genetically distant populations of P. globosa existed in the Atlantic coastal regions. This study provided a high-resolution chloroplast marker to analyze intraspecific phylogeographic populations of P. globosa, and preliminarily clarified the genetic relationships of the Pacific and Atlantic strains of P. globosa.

Automated summary

Phaeocystis globosa is an important harmful algal bloom species found in temperate and tropical coastal waters globally. This study analyzed genetic distances and phylogeographic relationships among different strains using nuclear and chloroplast DNA markers, with the chloroplast rbcS-rpl27 intergenic spacer showing the strongest ability to distinguish geographic strains.