Diversity of marine benthic algae from Cantabria (Eastern Cantabrian, Spain): a historical overview of research and publications

Biologia https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-021-00995-4 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Diversity of marine benthic algae from Cantabria (Eastern Cantabrian, Spain): a historical overview of research and publications Eduardo Cires1,2 · Candela Cuesta1,3 Received: 23 June 2021 / Accepted: 13 December 2021 © The Author(s) 2022 Abstract The macroalgal flora of Cantabria (north of Spain) has attracted the interest of many researchers on past occasions. Currently published information only reflects occasional collections from sporadic field visits to this region of the Spanish Atlantic coast. To overcome this, a historical overview of research and publications, encompassing collections and presence data recording, has been undertaken. This work lists the resultant taxonomic records and provides information about macroalgal flora of Cantabria. A total of 425 species (25 Cyanobacteria, 55 Chlorophyta, 81 Ochrophyta, and 264 Rhodophyta) were identified. The number of specific, infraspecific taxa, and stages is 437: 25 Cyanobacteria, 57 Chlorophyta, 89 Ochrophyta, and 266 Rhodophyta. The floristic character of flora from the Cantabrian coast is compared over time and with nearby regions applying Cheney’s ratio [(Rhodophyta+Chlorophyta)/ Ochrophyta, or (R+C)/O]. The present paper aims to provide an overview of the research that has been conducted in the Cantabrian coast, not only found in international publications but also in local publications as well as unpublished theses. Keywords Cantabria · Chlorophyta · Cyanobacteria · Flora · Iberian Peninsula · NE Atlantic · Ochrophyta · Rhodophyta · Seaweeds · Spain Introduction Marine benthic flora of the Atlantic coasts of the Iberian Peninsula has been studied for over 250 years (e.g., Clemente y Rubio 1807; Colmeiro 1867, 1889; Lázaro e Ibiza 1889); Sauvageau 1897; Chalon 1905; Miranda 1931; Dizerbo 1956, etc.) and, currently, many species are catalogued in various checklists or compilations (e.g. Miranda 1943a, b, c, 1944; Ardré 1970; Cremades et al. 2002; Gorostiaga et al. 2004; Araújo et al. 2003, 2009; Bárbara et al. 2003, 2005; Cires and Cuesta 2010, 2019). In recent years, new floristic contributions have increased our knowledge * Eduardo Cires 1 Departamento de Biología de Organismos y Sistemas, Universidad de Oviedo, C/ Catedrático Rodrigo Uría s/n, 33071 Oviedo, Spain 2 Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Ordenación del Territorio (INDUROT), Campus de Mieres, C/ Gonzalo Gutiérrez Quirós s/n, 33600 Mieres, Spain 3 Escuela Politécnica de Mieres (EPM), 3ª Planta Ala Sur. C/ Gonzalo Gutiérrez Quirós s/n, 33600 Mieres, Spain of the algae in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, and new research at the molecular level has been developed, enriching the traditional systematics. However, within the Iberian coast, Cantabrian marine benthic flora is scarcely known to the point that no detailed checklist of the region has been developed. Some lists focused on the Western and Eastern stretches of the coast were published (Fernández-Montero et al. 1998; Menoyo et al. 1998) and later expanded (Martínez-Gil et al. 2007), which verse around the benthic marine algae from Noja (Cantabria). Although these works add up a total of 252 species to the marine flora of the province, a much higher value is found in neighboring territories (Fig. 1). Thus, the present work aims to expand the knowledge on the marine algae flora of the coast of Cantabria for the first time. It is worth highlighting that a thorough knowledge of natural resources of a territory is always required, not only for a proper evaluation and conservation management, but also as it constitutes an exceptionally valuable source of scientific information. Therefore, this inventory does not attempt to be a definitive catalogue, as new records appear continuously, but to contribute to increase our understanding of the biogeographical characteristics of this area in the 13 Vol.:(0123456789) Biologia Fig. 1  Map showing the location of Cantabria and the regions with which its flora is compared. (A) Study area of the present work. (B) Map showing the location of Atlantic provinces. Red: publication year of the checklist or compilation - North of Portugal (Araújo et al. 2009), Galicia (Bárbara et al. 2005), Asturias (Cires and Cuesta 2010, 2019); Basque Country (Gorostiaga et al. 2004). Black: number of algae listed Atlantic coast and the knowledge of its marine biodiversity, which altogether may be useful for the sustainable management of the future marine protected area. universities and scientific institutions. The herbarium specimens checked belong to University of Oviedo (FCO-Algae), Royal Botanic Garden of Madrid (MA-Algae), University of Barcelona (BCN-Phycophyta), Complutense University of Madrid (MACB-Algae), University of Valencia (VALAlgae), University of País Vasco (BIO-Algae), University of Santiago de Compostela (SANT-Algae) and The French National Museum of Natural History (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, PC-cryptogamy) (see GBIF 2021; https://www.gbif.org/). The current taxonomic status and nomenclatural changes of the taxa of interest have been considered following Algaebase (https://www.algaebase.org/; Guiry and Guiry 2021). Phyla, class, orders, families, genera and species are alphabetically arranged. To classify the Cantabrian algae flora, we have applied Feldmann’s ratio [R/O] (number of species of Rhodophyta / number of species of Ochrophyta) and Cheney’s ratio [(R+C)/O] in a similar manner to Feldmann’s but including green algae (Feldmann 1937 and Cheney 1977 respectively). These ratios indicate the position of a flora in relation to cold and warm waters. Materials and methods Description of study area and applied methodology The coast of the Cantabria region, between 43º 21’ N, 3º 09’ W and 43º 23’ N, 4º 30’ W covers about 220 km (Fig. 1). It borders Asturias to the west at Tina Mayor, a small estuary formed by the mouth of Deva river, while to the east it borders the Basque Country. It is characterized by extensive cliffs (approximately 136 km are occupied by cliffs). In short, it is a steep coast with many geographical features (e.g., wave-cut platformer beach, estuaries, bays, headlands and beaches). The climate is temperate, oceanic, with moderate winters and warm summers. This catalogue compiles an intensive search of scientific information related to benthic marine algae from the Cantabrian coast. The checklist is based on a compilation of data from literature references and herbarium data. For the literature survey, international publications on macroalgae where Cantabria is cited were retrieved from four different search engines, i.e., the Web of Science (https://clari vate.c om/w ebofs cienc egrou p/), ScienceDirect (https://w ww. sciencedirect.com/), Scopus (https://www.scopus.com) and Google Scholar (https://s chola r.g oogle.c om/). Subsequently, inquiries were made regarding papers that were published locally in journals of different local univ (...truncated)