Ecological Relevance and Physical Morphology of Green Algae, Spirogyra sp. in Northern Thailand

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate molecular profiling and ecological preference of Spirogyra spp. in Thailand, using the profiling of HAT-RAPD markers. Biological parameters; cell dimension (width and length), number of chloroplast spiral/granules and some ecological parameters; total dissolved solid (TDS), pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), salinity and conductivity were also performed to determine correlation between biological and ecological parameters. For the specimen collection; 11 sampling sites in Northern provinces were designed. By basing on cluster analysis of ecological parameter, significantly different was observed (p<0.05). Significantly different was also detected in biological parameters, by revealing 5 different character groups (p<0.05) among all 11 specimens. The major classified criteria seem to be number and arrangement of chloroplast spiral. Contrastingly, by basing on correlation coefficient analysis, conductivity and TDS showed significantly related with all biological parameters, whereas DO showed significantly related with TDS and number of chloroplast spiral. For molecular study, on the basis of 54 characters (fragment size) provided from 5 different HAT-RAPD primers, 3 groups of Spirogyra spp. were divided and represented according to their geographical distribution. This finding allowed the magnitude of HAT-RAPD markers for profiling and determining of geographical and ecological origins.