Integrative Taxonomic, Ecological and Genotyping Study of Charophyte Populations from the Egyptian Western-Desert Oases and Sinai Peninsula

Abstract

Present-day information available on the charophyte macroalgae in Egypt, including their phylogenetic affinities, remains largely incomplete. In this study, nine charophyte populations were collected from different aquatic biotopes across the Egyptian Western-Desert Oases and Sinai Peninsula. All populations were investigated using an integrative polyphasic approach including phylogenetic analyses inferred from the chloroplast-encoded gene (rbcL) and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS1) regions, in parallel with morphotaxonomic assignment, ultrastructure of the oospore walls, and autecology. The specimens identified belonged to the genera Chara, Nitella, and Tolypella, with predominance of the first genus to which five species were assigned though they presented some interesting aberrant taxonomic features: C. aspera, C. contraria, C. globata, C. tomentosa, and C. vulgaris. Based on our integrative study, the globally rare species C. globata was reported for the second time for the whole African continent. The genus Nitella was only represented by N. flagellifera, and based on the available literature, it is a new record for North Africa. Noteworthy, an interesting Tolypella sp., morphologically very similar to T. glomerata, was collected and characterized and finally designated with the working name ‘Tolypella sp. PBA–1704 from a desert, freshwater wetland’, mainly based on its concatenated rbcL+ITS1 phylogenetic position. This study not only improved our understanding on the diversity, biogeography and autecological preferences of charophytes in Egypt, but it also broadened our knowledge on this vulnerable algal group in North Africa, emphasizing the need of more in-depth research work in the future, particularly in the less–impacted desert habitats.

The Charophytes (Charophyceae, Characeae) from Dagestan Aquatic Habitats, North Caucasus: Biogeographical and Barcoding Perspectives

“…In other words, it represents a group of species with still debatable and uncertain boundaries [52,77]. The molecular markers applied so far failed to be helpful in this case [27,31,97,98,100] except for C. globata, a species delineable with rbcL sequences [26,35], in this study.…”

“…Chara globata is mainly a Central Asian species with several localities in Southeast Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and China [26,35,49,75,101,124]. Its distribution area extends north of the Caucasus to the arid regions of Volga and Don Interfluve [75,107].…”

Charophytes from the Cretaceous–Palaeogene transition in the Jhilmili intertrappean beds of Central India

“…Peckichara usually preferred a strictly freshwater environment (Villalba‐Breva et al, 2012). Chara has a broad range of ecological preferences and prefers to live in a variety of environments consisting of freshwater and brackish water bodies, coastal ponds, marshes, and lakes (Li, Fang, Wang, Wang, & Zhang, 2020; Li, Wang, Zhang, Wang, & Wan, 2020; Saber et al, 2021; Tian et al, 2021). In Jhilmili, the charophytes were recovered from the clayey limestone facies of unit 3 (Figure 12).…”

The charophytes (Characeae, Charophyceae) from the Yenisey Siberia (Russia)

“…Ближайшие местонахождения C. globata известны из Алтайского края и северо-западного Китая (Han, Li, 1994;Romanov et al, 2018, как C. dominii). Ареал вида расположен, в основном, в аридных и субаридных регионах Евразии, вид известен также из Северной Африки (Noedoost et al, 2015;Romanov et al, 2015Romanov, 2019a;Saber et al, 2021). (Sviridenko et al, 2007;Sviridenko T. V., Sviridenko B. F., 2008;Makeeva, 2009;Prirodnyy kompleks…, 2011;Makeeva, Naumenko, 2015).…”