First observation of Karlodinium veneficum from the East China Sea and the coastal waters of Germany

Harmful algal blooms often occurred in the East China Sea (ECS) and the German coastal waters of the North Sea but Karlodinium veneficum had not been taxonomically reported. Two strains of Karlodinium (LAMB090611 and LAMB010601) were isolated from the two areas in 2009. The morphological characteristics and molecular phylogeny of two strains are compared on the basis of observation of a light microscope, a scanning electron microscope (SEM), a laser scanning microscope (LSM) and an internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence data. The mean cell length of strain LAMB090611 is (14.2±1.8) μm (range 11.1–18.7 μm) and mean width is (10.8±1.5) μm (range 8.2–14.7 μm). The mean cell length of strain LAMB010601 is (15.1±1.2) μm (range 12.7–17.9 μm) and the mean width is (11.4±1.1) μm (range 9.1–14.7 μm), respectively. The two strains are similar in morphological characteristics, including a straight apical groove, distinct ventral pore, sulcal extension, cingulum displacement, two or four irregular shaped chloroplasts within the cell and almost equal sized epicone and hypocone. The large and round nucleus is located at the center or at the hypocone of the cell. The sequence length of the ECS strain LAMB090611 and the German strain LAMB010601 is 640 and 646 bp, respectively. The GC content is 49%. The nucleotide similarity of the two strains is 98.1%. The sequence divergence is 0.003. Both strains are confirmed as Karlodinium veneficum (D. Ballantine) J. Larsen and this is the first taxonomic report from China and Germany coastal waters. The population dynamics of this toxic species in the ECS and German coastal waters needs to be investigated in the near future.