DOI: 10.5061/dryad.ns1m7
title: Data from: The Hawaiian freshwater algae biodiversity survey (2009-2014): systematic and biogeographic trends with an emphasis on the macroalgae

description: Background A remarkable range of environmental conditions is present in
 the Hawaiian Islands due to their gradients of elevation, rainfall and
 island age. Despite being well known as a location for the study of
 evolutionary processes and island biogeography, little is known about the
 composition of the non-marine algal flora of the archipelago, its degree
 of endemism, or affinities with other floras. We conducted a biodiversity
 survey of the non-marine macroalgae of the six largest main Hawaiian
 Islands using molecular and microscopic assessment techniques. The present
 biodiversity survey aimed to evaluate the competing ideas of whether
 endemism or cosmopolitanism better explain freshwater algal distribution
 patterns, and to provide a baseline data set for monitoring future
 biodiversity changes in the Hawaiian Islands. Results A total of 1,786
 aquatic and terrestrial habitats and 1,407 distinct collections of
 non-marine macroalgae were collected from the islands of Kauai, Oahu,
 Molokai, Maui, Lanai and Hawaii from the years 2009-2014. Targeted
 habitats included streams, wet walls, high elevation bogs, taro fields,
 ditches and flumes, lakes/reservoirs, cave walls and terrestrial areas.
 Numerous collection sites lacked freshwater macroalgae, and these sites
 were typically terrestrial and wet wall habitats that were sampled for
 diatoms and other microalgae. Approximately 50% of the identifications
 were of green algae, with lesser proportions of diatoms, red algae,
 cyanobacteria, xanthophytes and euglenoids. Molecular characterization of
 individual isolates yielded 898 DNA sequences representing eight different
 markers, which enabled an assessment of the number of taxonomic entities
 for genera collected as part of the survey. Forty-four well-characterized
 taxa were compared with literature records for these same taxa to assess
 global distribution patterns, and were characterized as belonging to one
 of four distributional categories based on how many regions of the world
 in which they were reported as being present. This analysis revealed no
 clear biogeographic affinities of the flora, with 27.3% characterized as
 “cosmopolitan”, 11.4% “endemic”, and 61.3% as intermediate. Conclusions
 The Hawaiian freshwater algal biodiversity survey (2009-2014) represents
 the first comprehensive effort to collect, characterize and document the
 non-marine algae of a tropical region in the world using both
 morphological and molecular tools. The survey supported the design and
 population of the Hawaiian Freshwater Algal Database, which houses all
 project data and serves as a digital repository of photographs and
 micrographs, georeferenced localities and DNA sequence data. These
 analyses yielded an updated checklist of the non-marine macroalgae of the
 Hawaiian Islands, and revealed varied biogeographic affinities of the
 flora that are likely a product of both natural and anthropogenic
 dispersal.
description: rbcL sequences
 Submission1762583.txtrbcL
 sequencesITS sequences
 Submission1762271.txtITS
 sequencestufA sequences
 Submission1762279.txttufA
 sequencesUPA sequences
 Submission1762280.txtUPA
 sequencesLSU sequences
 Submission1762283.txtLSU
 sequencesSSU sequences
 Submission1762486.txtSSU
 sequencesdata for distributional
 analysisThallus and dispersal
 unit sizes of macroalgae used for analyses in the current
 manuscript.excel version of
 isolates from HfwADB for table 2GPS data for isolates
 characterized in the survey