In development since 1996, AlgaeBase ( http://www.algaebase.org) is an on-line database providing free access to authoritative taxonomic, distributional and nomenclatural information of more than 135,000 names of species and infraspecific taxa of algae set in the context of a taxonomic hierarchy. The project was initially funded by the Higher Education Authority, Department of Education and Science (Ireland) and the European Union (the SeaweedAfrica Project), and more recently by an industry sponsor in Ireland (Ocean Harvest Technology) and various phycological societies and organisations. The database currently includes more than 50,000 bibliographic references and incorporates the entire contents of the main phycological journals in addition to taxonomic, ecological, physiological and biochemical references in current and classical works. Nearly 10,000 PDFs are included, many of them of 19^th-century taxonomic works that are rare and difficult to obtain. The data are searchable at all taxonomic levels from kingdom to species (and infraspecific names), and AlgaeBase strives to provide citations of the original publications of all taxa. For any of the 145,000 taxa (names of genera and above included), all subordinate taxa at the next lowest rank are indicated along with the number of species for each. Within each genus the species and infraspecies taxa are listed along with the current taxonomic status of each name. Nearly 17,000 images are provided for downloading and use in teaching or research, with copyright and other rights being retained by the original contributors or by AlgaeBase. This database is being used by 2,000–3,000 individual visitors each day with nearly 100,000 requests a day and receives over 7 million “hits” each year, increasing at about 20% per annum. A brief description of other main on-line algal resources such as Index Nominum Algarum, the Catalogue of Diatoms Names, CyanoDB, and AlgaTerra is provided.

About three-hundred genera are currently recognized in the brown algae (SAR lineage, sub-regnum Stramenopiles or Heterokonta, divisio Ochrophyta, class Phaeophyceae). Since the first morphology-based pre-cladistic classifications, the advent of the concepts and methods of molecular phylogenies has resulted in countless new insights within the field of brown algal supra-generic systematics. Unfortunately, subsequent taxonomic changes have not always been performed; and after over twenty years of brown algal molecular systematics, it has become difficult to assign a given genus to its correct family and order. The aim of this review article is to update the generic and suprageneric classification of the Phaeophyceae, by taking into account the latest insights produced in the field of brown algal molecular systematics, in order to provide a clarified taxonomic framework whose uncertainties would result only either from absence of molecular data or phylogenetic irresolution rather than taxonomic vagueness due to misinterpretation of morphological characters.

This work presents a taxonomic, floristic and chorological account of the most representative turf-forming species from sand-covered rocks along the Atlantic Iberian Peninsula, including in this Part 2 species belonging to six orders of the Rhodophyta and one of the Phaeophyceae. For each species are provided morphological descriptions, distribution maps, and/or COI-5P sequences, as well as taxonomic notes. The species studied are: Rhodothamniella floridula, Ceramium ciliatum, Erythroglossum lusitanicum, Hypoglossum hypoglossoides, Ptilothamnion sphaericum, Spermothamnion repens, Tiffaniella capitata, Gelidium crinale, G. spathulatum, Pterocladiella melanoidea, Calliblepharis hypneoides, Gymnogongrus griffithsiae, Plocamium maggsiae, Gastroclonium reflexum and Bachelotia antillarum.

Lectotypes for the red algae Polysiphonia schousboei (=Leptosiphonia schousboei) and P. simpliciuscula (=Ophidocladus simpliciusculus) were designated here after the examination of original material housed in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle de Paris (cryptogamy collections, Herbier National).