Ulva sp.

4.4 Ulva sp. NC 4 - Ulva ‘torta’

One of the tufA haplotypes for this species was 1 bp (0.067 %) different from the sequence of an Ulva ‘ torta ’ topotype specimen. It is not a sequence from the type specimen upon which the name is based ( Turland et al. 2018). The specimens considered as topotypes for Ulva ‘ torta ’ match its general morphology but are from the Belt Sea area of the Baltic Sea and not the North Sea coast of Germany from where the species was originally described ( Steinhagen et al. 2019b). Thus, we tentatively identified this species as Ulva ‘ torta ’ until a type specimen sequence becomes available to confirm its identity.

One tufA haplotype from North Carolina specimens was identical to those of specimens from Rhode Island, Texas, and New Jersey, and previously collected North Carolina specimens ( Guidone et al. 2013; Melton and Lopez-Bautista 2021). Specimens of this species were also>99.5 % similar to samples from Australia, China, and Tunisia, and>98.5 % similar to specimens from the Northeast Pacific (British Columbia, Canada and Washington. The only other name applied to rbc L and ITS sequences of this species in public databases is Ulva clathratioides L.G.Kraft, Kraft et R.F.Waller , a name that has now been synonymized under Ulva ’ torta ’. Due to size discrepancies between North Carolina U. ‘ torta ’ specimens and the species description in Kapraun (1984), this species was identified morphologically as either U. ‘ ramulosa ’ Smith or U. ‘ clathrata ’ (Roth) C.Agardh. Ulva ‘ ramulosa ’ has since been synonymized under U. ‘ clathrata ’.