Morphological and Molecular Identification of Brown Algae, Padina sp.(thivy, 1960) In Lengeh Port, Persian Gulf

Brown algae of Padina sp (Adanson, 1763) are found globally across tropical coastal areas, inter-tidal and sub-tidal regions. The aim of this research was to identify morphological and molecular characteristics of padina species distributed across Lengeh Port in Persian Gulf using morphological examinations and rbcL chloroplast gene sequencing. For this purpose, morphological features were undertaken using valid identification keys. For molecular analysis, total genomic DNA was extracted by CTAB method with slight modifications. Amplification of fragments was carried out using rbcL primers. Analysis of genome sequences was undertaken using genetic softwares of Chromas, BioEdit and MEGA6 and phylogenetic trees were constructed by two models of Neighbor Joining (NJ) and Maximum Likelihood (ML). Results indicated that two identical species of padina (P. boergesenii and P. australis) in this research shared common cluster with 99% probability and showed high genetic similarities among related compared padina species submitted in NCBI Genbank.