KOREASCHOLAR

Neoporphyra kitoi Ma. Abe, N. Kikuchi, Tamaki, Tom. Sato, Murase, Fujiyoshi & Mas. Kobayashi has been known as an endemic species in Japan. Its high temperature tolerance suggests that it could be advantageous for cultivation. In this study, we collected it from the Ulleungdo island, Korea and transferred it into Pyropia for a new combination, identified as Pyropia kitoi (Ma. Abe, N. Kikuchi, Tamaki, Tom. Sato, Murase, Fujiyoshi & Mas. Kobayashi) D.J. Kim, T.O. Cho & B.Y. Won comb. nov. based on morphological and molecular analyses. Pyropia kitoi is also reported as a new record species in the list of Korean macroalgal flora. Although we didn’t observe the emergence of new blades from the rhizoidal cells, which is a key character for this species, our molecular analysis of rbcL revealed that our samples from Korea were congruent with “Neoporphyra kitoi” from Japan and were nested within the clade of Pyropia. The gene sequence divergence between the Korean and Japanese samples was 0-0.2%.

1. INTRODUCTION
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
    2.1. Molecular analyses
    2.2. Morphological analyses
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

• Dong Jin Kim(Department of Life Science, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Republic of Korea)
• Paola Romero-Orozco(Department of Life Science, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Republic of Korea)
• Gwan Woung Kim(Department of Life Science, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Republic of Korea)
• Boo Yeon Won(Department of Life Science, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Republic of Korea) Corresponding author
• Tae Oh Cho(Department of Life Science, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Republic of Korea)
• Seong Hyeon Baek(Department of Life Science, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Republic of Korea)