Ulva sp.

4.3 Ulva sp. NC 3

This species remains unnamed as its sequences did not match any available from type specimens. Ulva sp. NC 3 was well dispersed across the North Carolina coast, with samples at one of the southernmost North Carolina collection sites and one of the northernmost sites. It also spanned a wide range of salinities and habitats. Globally, this species is distributed in the Indian Ocean, Northeast Atlantic, and East Pacific, as well as the Mediterranean Sea and West Pacific. Phylogenetic analyses of both rbc L and tufA place this species as a sister taxon to U. californica and in a clade with U. tanneri and U. kanagawae ( Figures 3 View Figure 3 and 4 View Figure 4 ).

Three species names can be applied to the specimens of Ulva sp. NC 3 based on the morphological descriptions of Kapraun (1984): U. ‘ linza ’, U. ‘ flexuosa subsp. flexuosa ’, and Ulva ‘ flexuosa subsp. paradoxa ’. Ulva ‘ flexuosa ’ is a name that has been applied to other specimens resolved in the tufA species clade that includes Ulva sp. NC 3 ( Figure 3 View Figure 3 ), but there is currently no sequence from the type of U. ‘ flexuosa ’ to confirm these identifications. Ulva ‘ aragoënsis ’ (Bliding) Maggs is another name that has been applied to specimens within this species clade, including some from North Carolina ( Melton and Lopez-Bautista 2021), but similarly there are no type sequences to verify this identification.