This review provides a comprehensive summary of the PCR primers and profiles currently in use in our laboratory for red algal DNA barcoding and phylogenetic research. While work focuses on florideophyte taxa, many of the markers have been applied successfully to the Bangiales, as well as other lineages previously assigned to the Bangiophyceae sensu lato. All of the primers currently in use with their respective amplification profiles and strategies are provided, which can include full fragment, overlapping fragments and what might best be called "informed overlapping fragments", i.e., a fragment for a marker is amplified and sequenced for a taxon and those sequence data are then used to identify the best primers to amplify the remaining fragment(s) for that marker. We extend this strategy for the more variable markers with sequence from the external PCR primers used to "inform" the selection of internal sequencing primers. This summary will hopefully serve as a useful resource to systematists in the red algal community.Key Words: DNA barcode; Florideophyceae; molecular markers; phylogeny; polymerase chain reaction; primers; RedToL INTRODUCTIONThere can be little question that molecular techniques have radically altered the face of phycological research especially in the fields of biodiversity and systematics (Maggs et al. 2007). Whereas in the early years researchers focused strongly on two commonly used markers, viz., the plastid rbcL ) and the nuclear small subunit rDNA (Bird et al. 1992, Ragan et al. 1994, Saunders and Kraft 1994, a number of alternative markers have been developed for use with red algae from the population to the highest taxonomic levels (see Maggs et al. 2007, Table 6.1, for a list). Of particular importance in this regard have been the recent large-scale DNA barcoding (iBOL: http://ibol.org) (Saunders 2005) and Red Algal Tree of Life initiatives (RedToL: http://dblab.rutgers.edu/ redtol/) (Vis et al. 2010). Both of these projects target a broader and more comprehensive taxonomic sampling than previous initiatives, challenging researchers to develop more universal amplification strategies for markers (e.g., Saunders and McDevit 2012). Not even widely used markers such as the nuclear SSU and large subunit rDNA (Harper and Saunders 2001b) or the plastid rbcL ) have weathered these global initiatives without the need for refinement.In this review, we focus strictly on the primers, profiles and strategies for the PCR amplification of markers currently in use in our lab (for a review of current collection and DNA extraction protocols see Saunders and McDevit 2012). Being partners in both the DNA barcode and Red- Received February 5, 2013, Accepted February 26, 2013 *Corresponding Author E-mail: gws@unb.ca Tel: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work i...

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