Marine red algae of the Coffs Harbour region, northern New South Wales

Abstract

The marine benthic red algae of the Coffs Harbour region are described and illustrated in detail. The survey constitutes the first ever detailed descriptive and illustrative mainland regional monograph of any area along the entire eastern Australian seaboard. Collections made intertidally and to depths of 20 m have included 119 species in 74 genera, 26 families, and 8 orders of Rhodophyta, of which 54 (45%) were previously unrecorded from eastern Australia, 22 (18%) are new records for the whole of Australia (16 being new Southern Hemisphere records), 1 (Dictyothumnion) constitutes a new genus, and 16 (13%) are new species in the genera Gracilaria, Curdiea, Botryocladia, Dictyothamnion, Antithamnion, Ceramium, Callithumnion, Anotrichium, Nitophyllum, Phycodrys, Apoglossum, Dasya, Fernandosiphonia, and Herposiphonia. Also included are major Australian revisions of the genera Martensia and Nitophyllum, and six new combinations are proposed (Chondria infestans, Curdiea angustata, Dasya pilosa, Haraldiophyllum sinuosum, Myriogramme pulchellum, and Stenograrnme phyllophoroides). The Coffs Harbour flora, although related to the north-eastern and, to a lesser degree, southern Australian floras, has a number of species previously known only from much more remote localities, such as Japan (6 species), California (4 species), New Zealand (3 species), India (2 species), South America (2 species), the Galapagos Islands (1 species), China (1 species), South Africa (1 species), and the Mediterranean (1 species). Twelve of the 22 species newly recorded for Australia show a definite western Pacific distribution, a region with which the overall Coffs Harbour flora has strong affinities.