TITLE: STUDIES ON PHILIPPINE MARINE RED ALGAE AUTHOR(S): Cordero JR., Paciente A. CITATION: Cordero JR., Paciente A.. STUDIES ON PHILIPPINE MARINE RED ALGAE. SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS FROM THE SETO MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY 1977, 4: 1-258 ISSUE DATE: 1977-01 URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2433/176458 RIGHT: SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS FROM THE SETO MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY SERIES IV STUDIES ON PHILIPPINE MARINE RED ALGAE PACIENTE A. CORDERO,JR. SETO MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY FACULTY OF SC'IENCE, KYOTO CNIVERSITY PRESENT ADDRESS NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE PHILIPPINES RIZAL PARK, 1\IANILA, PHILIPPINES JANUARY 1977 Issued on january 31, 1977 Printed in Japan by DAIGAKU LETTERPRESS CO., LTD. Hiroshima, Japan A PART OF A DISSERTATION PRESENTED BY THE AUTHOR, AS A JAPANESE GOVERNMENT SCHOLARSHIP AWARDEE, 1973-1976, FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF SCIENCE IN THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE, KYOTO UNIVERSITY, JAPAN ADVISORY COMMITTEE PRoF. TAKASI TOKIOKA (D. Sc.) AssT. PROF. lsAMu UMEZAKI (D. Sc.) PROF. KuNIO IWATSUKI (D. Sc.) Contributions from the Seto Marine Biological Laboratory, No. 632. .. to my beloved wife, jocelyn, and children, ma. jenileen and juhan jose mari, whom i have to 'leave' at the time when they needed me most, in hearty appreciation of their immeasurable encouragements and prayers throughout the course of this study; and my parents, for their continued spiritual guidance, this piece qf work is sincerely dedicated ................... . Contents I. Introduction 5 Historical survey and list of recorded species II. Materials and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Sources of study materials List of main collectors III. Descriptions of the Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Keys to the sections, genera and species Text-figures and maps IV. Distribution ....................................... 235 Distribution in the Philippine waters Description of the four phycological regions V. Ecology .......................................... 239 Growth forms a. Saxicolous group b. Free-floating or stranded group c. Epiphytic group Seasonal occurrence VI. E<onomi< Significan<e of the Algal Flora in the Philippines ........................................ 241 VII. Summary ......................................... 242 VIII. Acknowledgements ................................. 243 Literature Cited .................................... 244 Index ............................................ 254 Plates !~XXVIII Philippine Marine Red Algae 5 I. Introduction Algology in the Philippines has a history which dates back to about 155 years. In spite of this long history its marine algal vegetations have remained virtually unknown. A few decades ago, the red algae, with one hundred and a little more species mentioned on old herbarium specimens in some fragmentary reports, had been studied by algologists but not by specialists of this particular algal group. The present study has been motivated by such a scanty information available. For want of any exhaustive report covering the whole red algae from the entire Archipelago a thorough study of all available Philippine materials has been urged. In order to present a unified list of red algae from the Philippines, provided with systematic descriptions and keys for their more ready identification, various records of their distributions and occurrences in any part of the country have been gathered. Furthermore, this study aims to show such details of red algal habitats as are intertidal or infratidal or where they grow most thickly. In other words, in this paper more emphases are put on taxonomy and distribution of the Philippine marine reo lagae. Historical Survey and List of Species Hitherto Recorded The first known collector of Philippine algal specimens was A. von Chamisso, a botanist who joined the Russian Romanzoff Expedition. The specimens col lected from Manila Bay when their ship 'Rurik' took shelter from a heavy storm in the Pacific from December 17, 1817 to January 29, 1818, formed the basis of R. Greville's (1830) monographic work on the genus Corallopsis. C. A. Agardh (1820) had earlier described and illustrated the type species of the genus under the name of Sphaerococcus salicornia, which Yl·as later transferred to Corallopsis and then more recently assigned to the genus Gracilaria. Before the exact locality of Chamisso's specimens could be ascertained, Ruprecht ( 1851) had doubted that they came from Unalaska as noted by the original collector. Recently, the type locality of this alga was finally traced by E. Y. Dawson (1954), who in April 1953 collected several specimens of Gracilaria salicornia from Manila Bay. In 1844, C. Montagne in his Plantae cellulares in Insulis Philippinensibus ... , recog nized the following species of red algae, though making no reference to their localities or habitats: Acanthophora thieri Gigartina gelatinosa Actinotrichia rigida Hypnea valentiae Amphiroa cumingii Laurencia obtusa Asparagopsis delilei L. papillosa Galax aura .fastigiata Liagora caenomyce Gelidium spiniforme lvfa stophora licheniformis These were included in the collections of Hugh Cumings, who was an English- 6 PAciENTE A. CoRDERO, JR. man living in Manila during the last half of the Spanish period. Duplicates of his collections deposited in the Kew Herbarium, were brought by E. Merrill to the Bureau of Science herbarium, but very unfortunately destroyed during the liberation of Manila. Needless to say, Montagne paid a tribute to the collector by naming the only species of Amphiroa as A. cumingii. Some of the binomials used by him have been already reduced to synonyms, e.g. Actinotrichia rigida to A. fragilis, Hypnea valentiae to H. charoides, while others such as Acanthophora thieri and Mastophora licheni formis are probably what are now known as A. spicifera and M. rosea, respectively. One year later, Fr. M. Blanco reported Fucus edulis, now known as Gracilaria edulis, collected from several areas in Luzon. The same species appeared in the Posthumous edition of his book Flora de Filipinas, printed in 1877. However, an earlier edition (1837), which antidated any books previously published on Philippine algology, contained no red algae. The most comprehensive treatise on Philippine marine algae, specifically the Rhodophyta, in the last century appeared in G. von Martens' Die Tange published in 1866. It is the botanical report of the Prussian Expedition to East Asia which visited the Philippines' southern Province of Zamboanga. The following species were collected by his son, Eduard von l'v1artens, a zoologist in the expedition: Species Locality Acanthophora thierryi Philippines Amphiroa cumingii Philippines A. pacifica Zamboanga Asparagopsis delilei Philippines Centroceras byalacanthum Zamboanga Ceramium loureiri Philippines Chondroclonium cornutum Manila Galax aura fastigiata Philippines Gelidium anthoninii Philippines G. rigens Manila G. rigidum Philippines Grateloupia jilicina Philippines; Zamboanga Halymenia durvillaei Zamboanga Hypnea divaricata Zamboanga Laurencia obtusa Philippines L. papillosa Philippines Leveillea gracilis Manila Mastophora decaisnei Manila Plocamium patens Zamboanga Of these, Acanthophora thierryi, Amphiroa cumingii, Asparagopsis delilci, Galaxaura jastigiata, Laurencia obtusa, L. papillosa, and Liagora caenomyce, were previously mentioned by Montagne. Mastophora decaisnei must be M. rosea; Centroceras byalacanthum and Philippine A1arine Red Algae 7 Leveillea gracilis arc possibly C. clavulatum and L. jungermannoiides, respectively. While his Gelidium anthoninii, G. rigens and Plocamium patens remain to be verified. It appears that only Galaxaurafastigiata of the algae reported in the 1873 paper of Grunow was gathered from the Philippines. It should be noted, however, that the algae referred to G. fastigiata by past and present collectors need to be revised, because G. fastigiata resembles closely G. oblongata and this caused a lot of confusions among phycologists as their comments on these controversial species are found in the taxonomic part of this paper. Three years later came the descriptions by G. Dickie ( 1876) of the marine algae collected from the Visayas and Mindanao during the British Challenger Ex pedition in 1874-1875. The list includes 16 species of red algae, namely: Actinotrichia rigida Zamboanga Amphiroa cumingii Zamboanga A. fragilissima Mactan Is., Cebu Chrysymenia uvaria Sta. Cruz Is., Zamboanga Gclidium rigens l\1actan Is. G. rigidum Zam hoanga Gracilaria dactyloides Sta. Cruz. Is. G. eucheumioides l'viactan Is. Gymnogongrus dilatatus Gigantes Is. Hypnea spinella Zamboanga Laurencia concinna Sta. Cruz Is. L. papillosa Zamboanga Lit/wthamnion byssoidcs Zam!Joanga L. polymmphum Zamboanga A1elobcsia .farino.w Zamboanga Peyssonclia rubra Sta. Cruz Is. This is considered one of the richest enumerations in the later part of the century. Three of the species, Actinotrichia rigida, Hypnea sjJinella and Melobesia farinosa have been revised to be synonyms of A.Jragilis, H. cervicornis and Fosliella Jarinosa, res pectively. His Laurencia concinna is probably the present L. brongniartii but not L. grevilleana or L. parvipapillata, as later records of red algae, Saito's ( 1969) especially, do not include L. concinna. This conclusion is in part influenced by the latest work of Saito and Takata (1974) based on Japanese materials identified by Okamura ( 1912) as L. concinna and by Yamada ( 1931) as L. grevilleana, later found to be L. brongniartii. Also, the occurrence of Gracilaria dactyloides in this region has never been verified, and probably this is true as to Gelidium rigens as noted previously. A. Piccone (1886, 1889) compiled the marine algae gathered during the voyage of the Vettor Pisani that visited the Philippines. This was the last paper in the 19th century, dealing with 8 species, namely: 8 PACIENTE A. CoRDERo, JR. Acanthophora orientalis Cavite Centroceras clavulatum Cavite Corallopsis minor Cavite Hypnea divaricata Cavite J ania tenuissima Ticao Is., Masbate Lithothamnion polymorphum Philippines Melobesia farinosa Philippines Poly;:;onia jungermannioides Ticao Is. The Corallopsis minor should be C. salicornia or what is now known as Gracilaria salicornia. As to the location, the shores of Cavite is affected by the water of Manila Bay, the type locality of C. salicornia as mentioned earlier. Such ecological con ditions could have ensured the dispersal of spores elsewhere within the confines of the Bay. Polyzonia jungermannioides is now called Leveillea jungermannioides, while the present name of Melobesiafarinosa has already been cited above. The occurrences of Centroceras clavulatum and Leveillea jungermannioides ltave been confirmed again by later workers. F. Heydrich ( 1894) gave description of one species of red alga, Acanthophora orientalis, collected from Manila. However, recent phycologists are of the opinion that A. orientalis should be merged under A. spicifera for want of any remarkable taxonomic differences between the two. The present writer ventures to follow this thinking after examining several materials of Acanthophora. F. Kjellman's book entitled Floride-Slagtet Galaxaura, published in 1900, closed the century. His description of Galaxaura Jastigiata was based on some fertile speci mens collected by Hugh Cumings deposited in Areschoug's herbarium. The literature of the present century begins with W. A. Setchell (1914)'s identifi cation of a Philippine specimen of Scinaia as S. hormoides. His specimen is believed now to be what is called S. moniliformis, so far the only species of the genus known from the Philippines. It is very much doubted that the same alga could have reached the southern waters of the country. The two dried materials of S. moniliformis presented in the paper, were collected from northern Luzon, Cagayan and Quezon provinces. In 1918, E. Merrill, then a member of the defunct Bureau of Science, cited one red alga Fucus gulaman collected from Manila Bay. This should have the bearing on Fr. Blanco's old collections with the same nomenclature. This is presently known as Eucheuma gelatinae. It was the Dutch Siboga Expedition that made the most comprehensive report of the Philippine marine flora. Some dredgings were done extensively in the southern part of the country, specifically in the vicinity of Sulu. The collections were studied by several authors, whose studies produced seven monographs. The red algae, mostly members of the family Corallinaceae, appeared in A. Weber-van Bosse and M. Foslie's (1904) and in A. Weber-van Bosse's (1921, 1923, 1928). The former contained the following species all collected from Sulu unless indicated.