Kappaphycus alvarezii (Gigartinales, Rhodophyta) cultivated in Brazil: is it only one species?

Kappaphycus alvarezii which is endemic to the Indo-Pacific region is the main raw material for kappa carra- geenan production. A seedling that was cultivated in Japan (originally from the Philippines) was introduced in a trial, for aquaculture purpose, in 1995, in Sao Paulo State, southeastern region of Brazil. It was later introduced in Santa Catarina State, in Southern Brazil. In 1998, another seedling that was brought from Venezuela, also originally from the Philippines, was commercially introduced at Ilha Grande Bay and later on at Sepetiba Bay, both in Rio de Janeiro State. The aim of this study was to characterize 21 samples from different farms (Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina States) and verify if they are K. alvarezii or other species. Based on the intergenic spacer cox2-3 sequences, phylogenetic relationships were inferred through neighbor joining, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian analyses. The topology of the trees suggests that all samples from the different farms form a monophyletic group of K. alvarezii. Statistical analysis of the cox2-3 marker calculated with median-joining network showed 38 variable positions de- fining 15 haplotypes for the studied samples of Kappaphycus. The most frequent K. alvarezii haplotype grouped the samples cultivated worldwide with the Brazilian samples. These results are important for better productivity and are environ- mentally desirable for introduction purposes since the species introduced is known and will help focusing the research on this species. This knowledge can be of assistance to the government in setting up environmental and cultivation pro- tocols to achieve sustainability in macroalgae aquaculture.