Laurencia is a red algal genus that was described by J.V. Lamouroux in 1813. The main characteristics of this genus have been known as the presence of four pericentral cells in an axial segment, secondary pit connections between adjacent epidermal cells, and the presence of corps en cerise in both epidermal and trichoblast cells. Additionally, the tetrasporangia are arranged in a parallel manner, and male branches feature terminal cup-shaped spermatangial pits. Currently, sixteen Korean Laurencia species have been reported based on their morphological characteristics. In this study, Laurencia decussata and L. pacifica have been added as new records to the Korean algal flora based on a combination of morphological observations and molecular analyses of rbcL sequences. Laurencia decussata has expanded from Australia and New Zealand to Korea, while the distribution of L. pacifica has expanded from USA and Mexico to Korea.

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%.