Consistent genetic divergence observed among pelagic Sargassum morphotypes in the western North Atlantic

• Published in: Marine Ecology
• Main Authors: Dibner, Skye, Martin, Lindsay, Thibaut, Thierry, Aurelle, Didier, Blanfuné, Aurelie, Whittaker, Kerry, Cooney, Laura, Schell, Jeffrey, Goodwin, Deborah, Siuda, Amy
• Other Authors: Eckerd College, National Science Foundation, Institut méditerranéen d'océanologie (MIO), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Toulon (UTLN)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité (ISYEB ), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université des Antilles (UA), Sea Education Association, ANR-19-SARG-0004,SARGASSUM ORIGINS,Identité et origine et des sargasses pélagiques(2019)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology; environment/Ecosystems; Langmuir; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal-amu.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03474441; https://hal-amu.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03474441/document; https://hal-amu.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03474441/file/Dibner%20et%20al%20Mar%20Ecol%202021%20version%20HAL.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1111/maec.12691

International audience Sargassum (class: Phaeophyceae, order: Fucales) is a complex group of marine brown macroalgae. There are 361 accepted species, mostly benthic, distributed globally in temperate and tropical waters (Guiry & Guiry, 2021). Among these, however, the world's only holopelagic macroalgae are as follows: Sargassum fluitans and S. natans. These drifters are suspected to reproduce asexually, maintain buoyancy via gas-filled floats, and establish a surface ocean habitat in the subtropical North Atlantic, equatorial Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico that is unparalleled in the open ocean. Individual, radial branching clumps are dispersed across the sea surface, aggregated by helical Langmuir circulation into parallel windrows, or concentrated into dense mats measuring 10s of meters across