Historical isolation and contemporary gene flow drive population diversity of the brown alga Sargassum thunbergii along the coast of China.

Background: Long-term survival in isolated marginal seas of the China coast during the late Pleistocene ice ages is widely believed to be an important historical factor contributing to population genetic structure in coastal marine species. Whether or not contemporary factors (e.g.

Hidden diversity and phylogeographic history provide conservation insights for the edible seaweed in the Northwest Pacific.

Understanding the evolutionary processes that have created diversity and the genetic potential of species to adapt to environmental change is an important premise for biodiversity conservation. Herein, we used mitochondrial W-L and 3 and plastid L-S data sets to analyze population genetic variation and phylogeographic history of the brown alga , whose natural resource has been largely exterminated in the Asia-Northwest Pacific in the past decades. Phylogenetic trees and network analysis consistently revealed three major haplotype groups (A, B, and C) in , with A and B distributed in the Japan-Pacific coast.