Checklist of the marine macroalgae of Vietnam.

Despite a rich seaweed flora, information about Vietnamese seaweeds is scattered throughout a large number of often regional publications and, hence, difficult to access. This paper presents an up-to-date checklist of the marine macroalgae of Vietnam, compiled by means of an exhaustive bibliographical search and revision of taxon names. A total of 827 species are reported, of which the Rhodophyta show the highest species number (412 species), followed by the Chlorophyta (180 species), Phaeophyceae (147 species) and Cyanobacteria (88 species). This species richness is comparable to that of the Philippines and considerably higher than Taiwan, Thailand or Malaysia, which indicates that Vietnam possibly represents a diversity hotspot for macroalgae. A comparison of the species composition with neighbouring countries yielded surprisingly low similarities. Rather than an indication of a biogeographical pattern, we are of the opinion that the low similarity with neighbouring countries is primarily an artifact resulting from taxonomic inconsistencies. The checklist presented here could serve as a valuable tool to reveal the seaweed diversity in Vietnam and to stimulate intraregional comparative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]