Protistology Genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships in five Porphyra species revealed by RAPD analysis

The genus Porphyra comprises red algae known as laver. They are distributed throughout Asia and used as food in Korea and other countries. Five species of Porphyra (P. tenera, P. yezoensis, P. seriata, P. suborbiculata and P. dentata) are regarded as ecologically and economically important in Korea. We used random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) to investigate their genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships. The analysis of ten primers revealed 97 loci, of which 70 were polymorphic (72.2%). P. seriata had the highest genetic diversity (0.147), and P. dentata, the lowest one (0.059). An indirect estimate of the number of migrants per generation (Nm = 0.212) indicated that gene flow was very low among the populations studied. The classification of Porphyra species based on the DNA markers does not fully coincide with the classification based on morphology.