Long distance kelp rafting impacts seaweed biogeography in the Northeast Pacific: the kelp conveyor hypothesis.

ABSTRACT

Routine DNA barcoding of the Haida Gwaii seaweed flora revealed "endemic species" attributed initially to this region's past as a glacial refugium. However, subsequent barcode records from central California rapidly eroded this list leaving species characterized by disjunct distributions (DD) between California and Haida Gwaii. This observation prompted a more detailed look at species for California and British Columbia and revealed that 33 of 180 DNA-barcoded genetic groups in common between these regions (~18%) predominantly displayed DD between California and northern British Columbia. A previous discovery that a red abalone shell found in Haida Gwaii (far north of its range) had a float-bearing kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) holdfast attached to it prompted a closer consideration of the COI-5P barcode data in support of a "kelp conveyor hypothesis." The hypothesis posits that there has been a net migration of Californian species to northern British Columbia the vector being species growing on substrata carried along with kelp rafts on the winter Davidson Current.