Genetic records of intertidal sea anemones from Portugal

Abstract Sea anemones are among the most ubiquitous organisms inhabiting the rocky shores of the Atlantic Ocean. We assessed the occurrence of intertidal sea anemones along several beaches on the Portuguese coast, identifying three families: (i) Actiniidae, including Actinia equina, Actinia fragacea, Anemonia viridis, Aulactinia verrucosa, and Anthopleura krebsi species, (ii) Hormathiidae, including Calliactis parasitica, and (iii) Sagartiidae , including Cereus pedunculatus. Analyses of concatenated sequences from one nuclear (18S) and four mitochondrial (16S, COI, COIII and ND6) genes revealed minimal intraspecific phenotypic or genotypic heterogeneity among the sampled locations or relative with species records in NCBI. A comparison among preservation methods across several different tissues demonstrated that tissues preserved with ethanol, and in particular column tissue, yielded higher amounts of DNA compared with samples from other body parts, including tentacles, gastrodermis and ectodermis preserved at −80 °C.