Morphological diversity of Sargassum species of Iran

Sargassum species are one of economically important brown algae in south of Iran. In this study, morphological variation was assessed in three Sargassum species widely distributed species in the southwest of Iran (Oman sea): Sargassum tenerrimum J. Agardh, Sargassum glaucescens J. Agardh and Sargassum ilicifolium C.Agardh. At each site, ten different nonproductive individuals were selected with a minimum distance of 2-3 meters at low tide or snorkeling. We investigated ten measurable and ten categorical morphological parameters from three localities (Chabahar, Quatr and Tang) using ANOVA test as well as factorial analysis. The ANOVA test performed among populations of each species as well as among species showed significant difference (p<0.01) for all quantitative characters used. Different clustering like UPGMA and Neighbor Joining separated populations of each species studied based on measurable characters while both measurable and categorical characters have main rules in differentiation of three species PCA analysis confirmed cluster analysis. In total, both measurable and categorical characters enable to discriminate species while categorical parameters studied did not vary among populations of each species studied. This is the first study on evaluation of inter-population variation of Sargassum species in Iran.