Halimeda opuntia

Invasion History

First Non-native North American Tidal Record: 1895
First Non-native West Coast Tidal Record:
First Non-native East/Gulf Coast Tidal Record: 1895

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General Invasion History:

Segmented green algae of many species of the genus Halimeda are widespread in in shallow tropical waters, including reef flats and sandy bottoms, rocky shores, mangroves, etc.  At least 9 species are known, with different distributions in the tropical Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific. Halmeda opuntia is unusual for its very broad pan-tropical distribution.  Ii was first collected in Jamaica before 1700 (Sloane 1707, cited  by Kooistra and Verbruggan 2005).  Its closest relatives are Indo-Pacific species of the Halimeda hederacea-distorta complex. Ribosomal DNA sequences of  H. opuntia from a separate clade from the hederacea-distorta complex.  Sequences of H. opuntia from the Caribbean clustered with those from the Indian Ocean, while sequences from Brazil grouped with ones from the Pacific, suggesting multiple introductions .(Kooistra and Verbruggen 2005). Paleontological data support introduced status.  In the Pacific, segments of Halimeda opuntia and H. hederacea-distorta form deposits several meters thick, indicating sever hundreds of thousands of year of deposition,  In the Caribbean, deposits of H. opuntia segments are less than 1 m deep, suggesting less than a millennium of deposition,  A recent deposit in the Bahamas, consists of about 50% of Halimeda segments, with a high proportion of .H. opuntia.  By contrast, H. opuntia was absent from a nearby Pleistocene deposit (Kooistra and Verbruggen 2005).  Ship fouling is a likely vector, since European colonial shipping had been occurring for nearly two centuries before its collection before 1700 (Kooistra and Verbruggen 2005).

In 2012, Halimeda opuntia was collected for the first time on Rocas Atoll, in the Atlantic, 230 km off the coast of northern Brazil. Botanical collections have been made on the Atoll since the 1970s.  The genus Halimeda was absent from the atoll before this collection.  Ship fouling or floating debris are possible vectors for dispersal (Sssini et al. 2014)..  The  invasion of Halimeda opuntia in the Americas is difficult to document, because much of its dispersal occurred before the start of widespread seaweed collection.  The Challenger Expedition collected H. opuntia on Barra Grande, Bahia, Brazil, and Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, off Pernambuco in 1876 (Bandeira Pedrosa et al. 2004).  The earliest dates in the United States National Museum of Natural History Botanical Collections were from 'Florida' in 1884.  The Florida records in the collections range form Biscayne Bay to Key West (United States National Museum of Natural History Botanical Collections 2023).  Halimeda opuntia ranges through the Caribbean to Panama and Brazil, south to Rio de Janeiro (Kaplan 1988; Bandeira Pedrosa et al. 2004; United States National Museum of Natural History Botanical Collections 2023)

North American Invasion History:

Invasion History on the East Coast:

The range of Halimeda opuntia in continental US waters appears to be limited to Biscayne Bay and the Florida keys, based on collections in the US National Museum of Natural History; and Macroalgal Herbarium Consortium (2023)..  The earliest collection in the catalog was by E. Palmer in 'Florida (no details)' in 1884. (US National Museum of Natural History, Botanical Collections 2023);   Halimeda opuntia was probably well-established in southernmost Florida by the early 19th century (Kooistra and Verbruggen 2005).

Invasion History on the Gulf Coast:

The range of Halimeda opuntia in continental US waters appears to be limited to Biscayne Bay and the Florida keys, based on collections in the US National Museum of Natural History; Macroalgal Herbarium Consortium 2023)..  The earliest collection in the catalog was by E. Palmer in 'Florida (no details)' in 1884. (US National Museum of Natural History, Botanical Collections 2023;   Halimeda opuntia was probably well-established in southernmost Florida by the early 19th century (Kooistra and Verbruggen 2005).

Invasion History Elsewhere in the World:

Segmented green algae of many species of the genus Halimeda are widespread in in shallow tropical waters, including reef flats and sandy bottoms, rocky shores, mangroves, etc.  At least 9 species are known, with different distributions in the tropical Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific. Halmeda opuntia is unusual for its very broad pan-tropical distribution.  Ii was first collected in Jamaica before 1700 (Sloane 1707, cited  by Kooistra and Verbruggan 2005).  Its closest relatives are Indo-Pacific species of the Halimeda hederacea-distorta complex. Ribosomal DNA sequences of  H. opuntia from a separate clade from the hederacea-distorta complex.  Sequences of H. opuntia from the Caribbean clustered with those from the Indian Ocean, while sequences from Brazil grouped with ones from the Pacific, suggesting multiple introductions .(Kooistra and Verbruggen 2005). Paleontological data support introduced status.  In the Pacific, segments of Halimeda opuntia and H. hederacea-distorta form deposits several meters thick, indicating sever hundreds of thousands of year of deposition,  In the Caribbean, deposits of H. opuntia segments are less than 1 m deep, suggesting less than a millennium of deposition,  A recent deposit in the Bahamas, consists of about 50% of Halimeda segments, with a high proportion of .H. opuntia.  By contrast, H. opuntia was absent from a nearby Pleistocene deposit (Kooistra and Verbruggen 2005).  Ship fouling is a likely vector, since European colonial shipping had been occurring for nearly two centuries before its collection before 1700 (Kooistra and Verbruggen 2005).

In 2012, Halimeda opuntia was collected for the first time on Rocas Atoll, in the Atlantic, 230 km off the coast of northern Brazil. Botanical collections have been made on the Atoll since the 1970s.  The genus Halimeda was absent from the atoll before this collection.  Ship fouling or floating debris are possible vectors for dispersal.  The  invasion of Halimeda opuntia in the Americas is difficult to document, because much of its dispersal occurred before the start of widespread seaweed collection.  The Challenger Expedition collected H. opuntia on Barra Grande, Bahia, Brazil, and Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, off Pernambuco in 1876 (Bandeira Pedrosa et al. 2004).  The earliest dates in the United States National Museum of Natural History Botanical Collections were from 'Florida' in 1884.  The Florida records in the collections range form Biscayne Bay to Key West (United States National Museum of Natural History Botanical Collections 2023).  Halimeda opuntia ranges from southernmost Florida  through the Caribbean to Panama and Brazil, south to Rio de Janeiro (Kaplan 1988; Bandeira Pedrosa et al. 2004; United States National Museum of Natural History Botanical Collections 2023)

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Description

Green algae of the genus Halimeda are  erect, but low-growing, from a fibrous holdfast, with dichotomous branches of jointed, calcified segments, in more than one plane.  The segments are calcified. and vary in shape: kidney-shaped, with a round, or fluted edge.  Branches are trichotomous, and often tightly clumped, with plants growing to about 15 -34 cm. The segments are fan to kidney shaped, with an undulated or deeply lobed margin, united by a central rib and and by central medullary filaments.  The segments are 3-8 mm, 4-10 mm wide, and 0.5-7mm thick.   The color is variable from greenish to cream. the morphology of colonies and segments.  The morphology of segments and plants vary greatly with habitat, with three-lobed segments in sheltered lagoons, but with kidney-shapod segments  on wave-exposed shores.  

Kaplan 1988; Carpenter and Niem 2001; Bandeira -Pedrosa et al. 2004; Kooistra et al. 2005; Sissini et al. 2014; Guiry and Guiry 2023

 

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Taxonomy

Ecology

General:

'Halimeda opuntia is a segmented green alga, which grows abundantly in shallow subtidal and lower intertidal zones, although it also ranges to a depth of 44 m.  Its morphology varies  with habitat,  from tightly clumped mats, on exposed rocky shores, to  looser branched tufts on shaded vertical walls. This seaweed forms dense growths, with a h9igh biomass. providing habitat for a a great variety of invertebrate. Its calcified segments can be an important source of calcium carbonate to sediments (Kaplan 1988; Bandeira and Pedrosa 2004), 

 

Food:

Consumers:

Fishes; sea urchins

Competitors:

Other species of Halimeda

Trophic Status:

Primary Producer

PrimProd

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Habitats

General Habitat	Rocky	None
General Habitat	Coral reef	None
General Habitat	Unstructured Bottom	None
General Habitat	Mangroves	None
Salinity Range	Polyhaline	18-30 PSU
Salinity Range	Euhaline	30-40 PSU
Tidal Range	Subtidal	None
Tidal Range	Low Intertidal	None
Vertical Habitat	Epibenthic	None

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Life History

Halimeda opuntia develops numerous structures, called gametophores, which give a fuzzy appearance to its segments.  these bear spherical gametangia, which resemble bunches of grapes.  The gametophores release similarly sized gametes, for isogamous sexual reproduction.  The gametes fuse to form a thallus, which may take a few months of a year to mature, as in suspected from H. macroloba.  Asexual reproduction is also important for the growth of this alga (Bold and Wynne 1978; Mayakun et al. 2012). 

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Tolerances and Life History Parameters

Broad Temperature Range	None	Subtropical-Tropical
Broad Salinity Range	None	Euhaline

General Impacts

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Regional Impacts

CAR-III	None		Ecological Impact	Competition
Halimeda opuntia can adversely affect coral recruitment by attracting large numbers of settling coral planulae, which do not survive after settlement (Nugues and Szmant 2006).
CAR-III	None		Ecological Impact	Habitat Change
Halimeda opuntia can adversely affect coral recruitment by attracting large numbers of settling coral planulae, which do not survive after settlement (Nugues and Szmant 2006).
CAR-III	None		Ecological Impact	Parasitism
Halimeda opuntia acts as a parasite reservoir by providing a reservoir for coral pathogens, such as the bacterium Aurantimonas coralicida which causes the White Plague II disease, which kills the dominant coral Montastraea faveolata (Nugues et al. 2004)
CAR-IV	None		Ecological Impact	Competition
Coral reefs in a marine protected area at St. Johns, US Virgin Islands, showed a trend of decreasing coral cover and increasing macroalgal cover. On one occasion, in 1998, Halimeda so. (presumably H. opuntia was the dominant species- at most other times it was the brown alga Dictyota sp.. (Edmunds 2002).
CAR-IV	None		Ecological Impact	Habitat Change
Coral reefs in a marine protected area at St. Johns, US Virgin Islands, showed a trend of decreasing coral cover and increasing macroalgal cover. On one occasion, in 1998, Halimeda so. (presumably H. opuntia was the dominant species- at most other times it was the brown alga Dictyota sp.. (Edmunds 2002).
CAR-II	None		Ecological Impact	Competition
Following a die-off of the sea urchin Diadema, and overfishing of herbivorus fishes, coral reefs around Jamaica, were overgrown by macroalgae, including Halimeda, presumably H. opuntia. The macroalgal cover prevented recruitment by coral larvae (Hughes 1994).
CAR-II	None		Ecological Impact	Habitat Change
Following a die-off of the sea urchin Diadema, and overfishing of herbivorus fishes, coral reefs around Jamaica, were overgrown by macroalgae, including Halimeda, presumably H. opuntia. The macroalgal cover prevented recruitment by coral larvae (Hughes 1994).
CAR-I	Northern Yucatan, Gulf of Mexico, Florida Straits, to Middle Eastern Florida		Ecological Impact	Food/Prey
The calcareous alga Halimeda opuntia is an important food for two species of parrotifishes (Caridae, Sparisoma spp), and probably for other herbivorous fishes (Munoz and Motta 2000)

References

Bandeira-Pedrosa, Maria Elizabeth; Pereira, Sonia M.B.; Oliveira, Eurico C. (2004) Taxonomy and distribution of the green algal genus Halimeda (Bryopsidales, Chlorophyta) in Brazil., Revista Brasileira de Botânica 22(2): 363-377

Biber, Patrick D.; Irlandi, Elizabeth A. (2006) Temporal and spatial dynamics of macroalgal communities along an anthropogenic salinity gradient in Biscayne Bay (Florida, USA), Aquatic Botany 85: 65-77
doi:10.1016/j.aquabot.2006.02.002

Carpenter, Kent E.; Niem, Volker N. (2001) The living marine resources of the western central Pacific- Vol I. Seaweeds, corals, bivalves and gastropods, Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, Italy. Pp. <missing location>

Cocentino, Adilma de Lourdes Montenegro and 5 authors (2020) Diversity and distribution Patterns of the infralittoral green macroalgae from Potiguar basin, Rio Grande do Norte, Northeastern Brazil Adilma de Lourdes Montenegro Cocentino1,4, Mutue Toyota Fujii2, Thiago Nogueira de Vasconcelos Reis1, Acta Botanica Brasilica 24(4): 986-996

Edmunds, Peter J. (2002) Long-term dynamics of coral reefs in St. John, US Virgin Islands, Coral Reefs 21: 357-367

Guiry, M. D.; Guiry, G. M. 2004-2023 AlgaeBase. https://www.algaebase.org/



Hughes, Terrence P. (1994) Catastrophe, phase shifts, and large-scale degradation of a Caribbean coral reef, Science 265(5178): 1547-1551

Kaplan, Eugene H. (1988) A Field Gude to Southeastern and Caribbean Seashores, In: (Eds.) . , Boston. Pp. <missing location>

Kooistra, Wiebe H. C. F.; Verbruggen, Heroen (2005) Genetic patterns in the calcified tropical seaweeds Halimeda opuntia, H. distorta, H. hederacea, and H. minima (Bryopsidales, Chlorophyta) provide insights in species boundaries and interoceanic dispersal., Journal of Phycology 41: 177-187

Lirman, D.; Biber, P. (2000) Seasonal dynamics of macroalgal communities of the northern Florida reef tract, Botanica Marina 43: 305-314

Macroalgal Herbarium Consortium 2023 Macroalgal Herbarium Consortium Portal. https://macroalgae.org/portal/index.php



Mayakun, Jaruwan; Kim, Jeong Ha; Lapointe, Brian E.; Prathep, Anchana (2012) Gametangial characteristics in the sexual reproduction of Halimeda macroloba Decaisne (Chlorophyta: Halimedaceae), Songklanakarin Journal of Science and Technology 34(2): 211-216

Munoz, Roldan; Motta, Philip J. (2000) Interspecific aggression between two parrotfishes (Sparisona, Scaridae) in the Florida Keus, Copeia 2000: 674-685

Nugues, Maggy M.; Smith, Garriet W.; van Hooidonk, Ruben J.; Seabra, Maria I.; Bak, Rolf P. M. (2004) Algal contact as a trigger for coral disease., Ecology Letters 7: 919-923

Nugues, Maggy M.; Szmant, Alina M. (2006) Coral settlement onto Halimeda opuntia: a fatal attraction to an ephemeral substrate?, Coral Reefs 25: 585-591

Ruiz, Gregory M.; Geller, Jonathan (2018) Spatial and temporal analysis of marine invasions in California, Part II: Humboldt Bay, Marina del Re, Port Hueneme, and San Francisco Bay, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center & Moss Landing Laboratories, Edgewater MD, Moss Landing CA. Pp. <missing location>

Silva, Paul C.; Menez, Ernani G.; Moe, Richard L. (1987) Catalog of the benthic marine algae of the Philippines, Smithsonian Contributions to the Marine Sciences 27: 1-179

Sissini, Marina Nasri and 5 authors (2014) First record of the green alga Halimeda (Bryopsidales: Chlorophyta) at Rocas Atoll— natural dispersion or anthropogenic causes?, Marine Biodiversity Records 7: e104

US National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany, 2008 Botany collections database. https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/botany/

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