Until the late 1980s the seaweed flora was considered to be species poor with only 188 species listed. Ian Tittley, in the Department of Botany at the NHM, has been working with colleague Ana Neto of the University of the Azores surveying the marine algal communities of these islands. Their work has more than doubled the species total, with critical groups still to be worked on, and algae new to science to be described. Subtidal algal community on the island of Flores Results show that the isolated island flora is much richer in species than previously thought and shares constituents in common with the warm-water floras of Europe, Africa, Macaronesia, and also America. Although the Azores share some intertidal and subtidal algal communities with mainland Europe, shores in the archipelago mostly lack the functionally important 'leathery macrophyte' communities of fucoids and laminarians widespread in the North Atlantic.
Intertidal communities are mainly of algal turfs typical of warm temperate and tropical regions.
Laminaria ochroleuca Bach. Mont. Improvement to our knowledge of the marine flora of the Azores would not have been possible without financial support from the British Council, the European Union, Earthwatch Institute as well as the NHM and the University of the Azores. Earthwatch volunteers provided field and laboratory support for fieldwork on the island of Flores. Work continues with the preparation of a handbook of the seaweeds of the Azores. In the course of mounting and repairing specimens, I have been studying the huge variety of paper used by past mounters, collectors and other herbaria.