Chara globularis – Chara connivens – Chara contraria: more insights from morphology and genetics

Most field charophytologists have experienced that the morphology of Chara specimen can be intermediate” between two different species. We collected a Chara sample in lake Sava, close to Belgrade, Serbia. The habitus of this specimen resembled C. contraria, but the microscopic details (“spines”, stipulodes) resembled C. virgata. Preliminary analysis of the matK gene, however, clearly place the sample into C. contraria. This means that C. contraria sometimes may have stipulodes where only the upper row is elongated. We also collected a sample which orphologically resembled C. connivens in Dulin pond (44°51’11.5” N 21°17’52.2” E), Serbia. The sample was clearly dioecious, and we analysed male and female samples. Preliminary analyses of the matK gene placed this sample into a separate sub-cluster of C. globularis (i.e. not together with C. connivens, but an own sub-group within C. globularis). We will present the most recent results on these specimens