The Finnish Forststyrelsen, together with Länsstyrelsen Västernorrland and FOI have developed a method using LIDAR and SCUBA diving in order to make more large scale mapping of fucoid belts in the Bothnian Quark. This is a very important tool in environmental monitoring, since this can be used in calculating more exactly the areas of seaweed affected positively or negatively by environmental change.
To see the nice map of Norrskär that has been constructed, click HERE.
News
Gold medal to professor Lena Kautsky
Vice-chancellor of the University of Stockholm has decided to distribute the Stockholm University gold medal of the 8th size in ribbon to three persons who in various ways have promoted the University’s activities.
One of these is the BalticSeaWeed blog’s very own Professor Lena Kautsky.
The motivation reads as follows:
“Lena Kautsky, professor of marine ecological botany, is awarded Stockholm University gold medal of size 8 in ribbon for her deep involvement in marine research and education at Stockholm University, in national collaboration on marine environmental issues and sharing of knowledge to the public and decision makers. Her leadership of the Stockholm Marine Research Centre and Asko Laboratory has been a decisive part in the fundamental work resulting in Stockholm University’s new Baltic Sea Centre. ”
The medals will be awarded at the installation ceremony held at City Hall on September 27th.
The BalticSeaWeed blog, swelling with pride, will of course post pictures from the ceremony.
See also university’s website (in Swedish only).
Seaweed course in Denmark
The week has been spent in Denmark, on a full Sunday to Sunday course to learn more about macroalgae.
With a schedule so full you can hardly fit it to a paper, the hopes and expectations to become a real seaweed guru are high.
There are 11 PhD students partaking, all from different countries!
The course is arranged by Aarhus University, as you can see in their newsletter (sorry, only in Danish).
Our first day of the course, we went out to collect macroalgae in the field. We started at the pier next to Ebeltoft harbour, where the sun shone and it was lee on the inside where we were working. I took this years “first swim without a drysuit in Nordic waters”. It was a refreshing 16 degrees Celsius and I was in the water for about 10 minutes, collecting material. Here there were four Fucus species growing: Fucus spiralis, Fucus vesiculosus, Fucus evanescens and Fucus serratus. Jackpot!
Lots of seaweed!
After a field lunch of sandwiches, we headed north, to Grenaa. Here, the Marine Home Guard and their boat took us out on Kattegat! What a luxury! This is a new collaboration between the Home Guard and Aarhus University, so the Danish TV was out and filmed us. Click here and fast forward to 1:19 into the clip and there we are.
Monday evening and Tuesday was spent going through the collected material to determine the different species and look at their different physiological structures.
On Wednesday, we tried to reproduce sugar kelp ( Saccharina latissima ) by getting them to release spores. It didn’t quite go as planned, so we took some good old bladderwrack and got it to release eggs and sperm instead.
On Thursday, we went to Algcenter Grenaa and had a look around. Pictures from our visit you can see the Algcenter website
Anette Bruhn show us how they cultivate sugarkelp at the Algcenter
We also got to visit the Kattegat Center, located just across the parking lot. This is one of Denmark’s many fine aquariums that have long been on my wish-to-see list. It was just as good, if not better, as I had expected. There was even an exhibition of algae and their importance. It is totally worth a visit!
Friday and Saturday were devoted to compiling and analyzing all of our data, and then present it in four groups according to various themes (Taxonomy, Monitoring, Light and Cultivation).
Danish seaweed; red, brown and grøn
Seaweed project within BalticSea 2020
Anyone who is interested in the Baltic Sea might have heard of Baltic Sea 2020 Foundation.
Baltic Sea 2020 is a foundation founded by Bjorn Carlson through a donation of 500 million SEK (55 million EUR). The Baltic Sea 2020 Foundation’s assets shouldfund projects that are action-oriented, innovative and helps to improve the knowledge of the Baltic Sea continuously until 2020. The BalticSea 2020 Foundation began its work in 2006 and has to date initiated more than 70 projects, of which 25 are ongoing.
One of these projects is about trying to re-establish bladderwrack inside Björnöfjärden, a bay outside Stockholm. Björnöfjärden is heavily eutrophicated and the water is quite turbid with particles that prevents the light from penetrating. It quickly becomes dark below the surface, so that only a few stands of seaweed survive here. Observant locals have informed us that there was plenty of seaweed in the Björnöfjärd in the past, however.
So, seaweed enthusiasts to the rescue!
Susanne Qvarfordt is ready to establish bladderwrack.
Susanne Qvarfordt from the environment surveillance company Sveriges Vattenekologer has initiated a project that will examine what factors might prevent the seaweed population from re-establishing in Björnöfjärden.
In addition, she asked the BalticSeaWeed blog to help with our expertise!
So, during the first days of June, we collected fertile tips of bladderwrack. These were sexed (we cut the receptacles and see if they are male or female), so that we would get an appropriate ratio of males and females at each site.
Sexing seaweed is best done with a scalpell and a magnifying glass.
The bladderwrack were made into small beautiful fertile bouquets which were then attached to a grid. These will be placed in the water, floating over a number of concrete plates, and hopefully make new small seaweed babies that can attach itself to the plates.
All is ready for a baby boom!
So, now we have placed three grids in Björnöfjärden and three in nearby Fjällsviks Bay, to see if any of the other actions carried out in Björnöfjärden will affect the seaweeds ability to reproduce.
So, keep your fingers crossed that no one gets caught with their anchor or fish tackle in our beautiful grids, and hope for calm weather at Midsummer full moon so that there will be many wee ones.
Placing a seaweed grid with buoys.
Around Gotland
Yessiree! It’s time to jump into the water again!
After a long winter with lots of ice, and a well deserved trip to warmer water, it was time for yours truly to submerge oneself into the cool waters of the Baltic Sea.
Field season 2013 opened on Wednesday 22 May at the scenic island of Gotland, jewel of the Baltic Sea.
For the faithful reader, it comes as no surprise that it was time for the inventory of summer reproducing bladderwrack around this beautiful island, as part of the investigation we made along the mainland coast and Gotland last year (see previous post on Tångbloggen 2012 – A seaweed odyssey).
Gotland is well known by many botanists for its amazing flora, and the orchids certainly fought for space with primroses and lily of the valley along the road as we drove north from Visby up towards our first stop just south of Lickershamn.
Orchis mascula- Early purple orchid
Unfortunately, I think most people fail to see how beautiful Gotland is below the surface. The clear water and the dense seaweed forests are magically beautiful and are conveniently found at knee-depth in the water. If you do not like to get wet, you can easily experience life below the surface with a pair of high rubber boots or waders and water binoculars.
Our second stop was out on the island Fårö, at Lauter huvud. At the moment it’s a rather low water level in the Baltic Sea. It is caused by the weather and is not unusual this time of year. But it gets a little tricky to swim when you are constantly running aground. It was easier to walk among the rauks and occasionally stick my head under the surface in order to verify single specimens of Fucus. Quite possibly the occasional tourist who stayed at the car park was wondering what we were doing. One is not exactly discreet in a bright red dry suit. Hope I did not destroy too many photographs by emerging between rauks like a jack-in-the-box.
Having swum a little off the cliff edge, where it goes from 0.5 meters deep to 15 meters, we went to today’s third and last site at Östergarn.
Here the waves rolled in with a quiet rhythm, and if I had not been busy counting, I would certainly have fallen asleep, it was so very peaceful. The sun had come out and warmed my back as I floated about. I saw plaice, viviparous eelpout (Zooarces viviparus), stickleback, and Lesser pipefish (Syngnathus rostellatus).
The plaice is resting among the seaweed.
The night was spent at the nice hostel in Hemsedal, which had very comfortable beds.
Thursday morning began with a trip down to the southernmost tip of Gotland, the Hoburg. Here we encountered more nature lovers in the form of a flock of birdwatchers. The species often nests at the southern tips of both Oland and Gotland and is easily recognized by the telescope that is often worn over the shoulder.
I even saw Red-Backed Shrike (Lanius collurio), Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) and a yellow bird that I didn’t recognize.
The sea was calm and the swans that landed some distance away did not attack the red ball splashing around, muttering through a tube (snorkel). It was nice to see that htere were many small juvenile seaweed individuals there. Reproduction last year was apparently very successful. Always a good sign.
Our last stop for a dip was just south of Klintehamn. On the way there we visited the nice naturum center in Vamlingbo for a short break. With coffee in the body, we parked at what must be Gotland’s busiest road, and changed into work clothes.
“When you take off your pants, five cars and a bus will always appear” – Old jungle proverb
It was the only site with lots of bladders on the wrack! One might think that bladderwrack always have bladders, but no! If the site is exposed to strong wave action, no bladders are formed. This is to minimize wave grip, so that the wrack does not get torn off by the waves.
Bladders on the bladderwrack – not always to be expected.
It was plenty of gammarids, prawns and isopods here, and I hope I got a picture of the Lesser Pipefish hiding amongst the seaweed. It was obvious that there is a lot of nutrients coming out into the water as runnof from land. The seaweed had much filamentous algae growing on them. Swimming across it reminded me of a shaggy rug.
After again having fulfilled the jungle proverb (Why?!?) we headed towards Visby and enrolled into the prison. If we get out tomorrow remains to be seen.
Dissertation time for thesis on Fucus radicans and Fucus vesiculosus
Friday 17th of May is not only the National Day of Norway to be celebrated, but also the doctoral defence of Daniel Johansson.
Daniel has studied at the Sven Loven Centre for Marine Sciences Tjärnö (more commonly known as TMBL) belonging to the University of Gothenburg.
Daniel’s thesis is entitled “Evolution of the brown algae Fucus radicans and Fucus vesiculosus in the Baltic Sea” and contains primarily work from a genetic point of view. There has been a lot of work put into obtaining the genetic identity of both species in order to distinguish Fucus radicans from Fucus vesiculosus, but also to be able to distinguish between different clones of Fucus radicans, which in the Gulf of Bothnia reproduces mostly vegetatively. This is achived by proliferation, small branches that fall off from the parent plant and then attach themselves to new substrate.
Small branches of Fucus radicans have formed rhizoids (sticky threads) that attach to the Petri dish.
Daniel has also compared the ability of proliferation between different clones of Fucus radicans to see if the dominant clone, a female that has been found along 550 km of the Swedish Coast, was better than the other clones.
The defense starts at 14:00 in the Auditorium at Tjärnö, of course we will be there to listen!
Crisps!
So green and delicious!
International Seaweed Symposium – Day 4
With rested brains, it is once more time to stock up on more seaweed, both mentally and physically.
All things sweet and seaweedy
After an opening plenary lecture by Iain Neish about the importance of having a vision and being stubborn if we are to succeed with aquaculture, it was time for a cup of coffee, a slice of fruit cake and the day’s first mini-symposium.
Plenary lecture with Iain Neish
Mini Symposium: Cultivation of tropical red seaweeds
The most common species of red seaweed that are farmed are Eucheuma spp., Kappaphycus spp., Porphyra spp. and Gracillaria spp.
In Chile and Peru, it is primarily Gracillaria spp. that is farmed. In Chile, they seek to develop new methods to cultivate seaweed in the lab, instead of taking material from wild populations as many do today. They have also investigated whether it is possible to grow other commercial species.
In Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, most seaweed is farmed using the fixed off-bottom technique in shallow waters. The trick is to place them deep enough so that the algae are not harmed by the intense sun during low tide.
Most algae in shallow waters are farmed using the off-bottom method.
In deeper water, they use the free-swing method, where only one end is fixed at the bottom. The downside is that it takes up quite a lot of space, and then they must be set at such a distance that they do not become entangled in each other.
The free swing method, attached at only one point.
Other methods for deeper water is something called single longline rafts, spider web rafts or floating triangle, depending on how you have designed the ropes. But these rafts are secured at all four corners and thus are more stationary. It also means that you can place them closer together, without risking entanglement.
In deeper waters, single longline rafts are common.
Some growers use hanging baskets that the seaweed is floating freely in, which does not seem like a good idea to me. But this is still at the development stage. They use high pressure water hoses to remove unwanted growth of other seaweed (epiphytes).
Dr. Flower Msuya from Tanzania showed a summary of how seaweed cultivation has started and continued for the East African coast, with examples from Mauritius, Madagascar, Tanzania and Zanzibar course. The main problem to cope with is that they are now beginning to get problems with various diseases. There is much further research to do and a lot of mistakes to learn from. At the same time, a mini-symposium was held in the hall next to this, with the topic being diseases and parasites on seaweed. It’s a hot topic for the seaweed industry.
Presentations: Integrated aquaculture and introductions
In Australia, much yellowtail kingfish and tuna are farmed. At present, there is no cultured seaweed in Australia, so the researchers are now trying to find species suitable for cultivation along with fish farms in order to reduce emissions (IMTA, see previous posts). The species they are looking for are those that are good at taking up nitrogen from fish farms, but there should also be a market for the seaweed.
Kathryn Wiltshire from the University of Adelaide tested several species of red and brown seaweed to see which was best at taking up nitrogen and which grew fastest, in order to select species suitable for further experiments with the conditions that give the best performance.
Tom Schils from the University of Guam (you get extra points if you know where it is without looking it up) told us that coral reefs in Micronesia and the Pacific have very distinct algal communities, which are now threatened by introducing new varieties of these species bred for cultivation. A well-known example is the red alga Acanthophra spicifera that has taken over shallow waters on coral reefs around Hawaii.
Micronesia has a Biosecurity Plan, which seeks to identify and prevent threats to the marine environment, such as how to manage ballast water which is a great disseminator of species from one place to another.
Dr. Yang from China showed how the farming of the red alga Gracillaria spp. is along China’s 18,000-kilometer coastline and how China is now working to develop the use of integrated aquaculture. Between 1967-1980, 50-60% of China’s aquaculture consisted of cultured seaweed, mainly brown alga Saccharina japonica. Since then, the proportion of farmed fish, shrimp, crabs and clams increased. It leads to increased nitrogen load, and you need to cultivate more seaweed to not have problems with eutrophication.
The production of Gracillaria spp. is rising steadily, from 0.13 hectares in 2000 to 1,067 hectares in 2007. In 2011, the total cultivation area of Gracillaria was an astonishing 1,500 hectares!
International Seaweed Symposium – Day 3; A day off
It may seem strange that you need a day off after only two days, but it has been so intense that it was badly needed!
The BalticSeaWeed blog went up into the mountains and visited Bali’s botanical garden, where there were plenty of orchids and ferns.
Fern trees are just lovely!
We even got our guide to become totally confused when we stood and looked at a tree and photographed it for five minutes, instead of looking at the temple that we visited, or at least photographed the beautiful flowers. But the tree trunk was full of beautiful lichens, which actually consists of a fungus and an alga.
Beautiful lichens on tree trunk.
21st International Seaweed Symposium – Day 2
After a tumultuous first day, in which the brain was saturated with impressions of color, shape, flavor and facts, we now enter to the second day. Today it is presentation at the mini-symposium on my part, and in the afternoon it is the poster session for me and Lena.
Our poster, with rubber receptacles.
During the coffee breaks one can eat anything and everything that is based on seaweed. It gets very jello… We have also tried seaweed sausages, seaweed nuggets, seaweed-sate (this was the tastiest, very nice and spicy) and seaweed pepes (wrapped in banana leaves and grilled).
Should we even comment on this one?
There are MANY ways of using algae in cooking.
We aim to find as many seaweed-products as possible to take home with us.
An abundance of products.
But first, a summary of the mornings scientific talks.
Mini-Symposium: Human and natural impacts on seaweed beds.
Dr. Muraoka and Dr. Fujita, both from Japan, showed how the tsunami that hit the Japanese East Coast In March 2011 has affected life in the sea. This was very interesting, because the news have generally focused on what happened on land.
In areas near the epicenter, a large acreage of seagrass meadows has disappeared. The tsunami swept over the smaller peninsulas and also destroyed many sheltered bays. But now, in 2012, it has begun to recover. However, it will take a few years, but it points in the right direction.
One of the major problems for plant life in the ocean was all the particles that were flushed out in the water. This hindered light from penetrating any deeper than 4 meters.
In Onmae Bay, there was many fish- and mussel farms before the tsunami. There were problems with fouling of the kelp species Saccharina japonica on cultivation cages and mussel ropes. An estimated 90 tons (!) of kelp grew on the farms per year. This compares to one ton of kelp from the protected rocky shores near (where sea urchins grazed extensively) and 10 tons from more wave exposed places where sea urchins could not graze.
The growth of Saccharina japonica is also favored by the nutrients coming from fish- and mussel farms. From the time of reproduction in November until May they grew a full 2 meters! The kelp is favored by good water circulation, which was higher out on the farms than on the natural hard bottom.
Today, there are large amounts of garbage from every house and car that were washed out to sea by the tsunami wave. Many breakwaters and other structures that sheltered beaches also disappeared. This has benefited the recovery of the kelp, as its worst enemy, the sea urchins, cannot graze as intensively in areas with large waves.
As they are beginning to recover from the disaster, the sea urchin fishery have commenced again. This has also helped the kelp to re-establish.
As the kelp has come back again as fouling out on the new farms, it is now a different species, Petalonia fascia, which dominates. This proved to be a problem, because it is not nearly as efficient at taking up nitrate and ammonium as Saccharina japonica. It therefore has become a problem of high nitrogen levels in the cages. There is a difference between seaweed and seaweed, you see.
So, now they are working to bring back the “right” kelp, Saccharina japonica, to avoid the kind of problems that can be caused by too much nutrients in the water. The worst of these are blooms of microalgae, so-called red tides, which can also cause shell toxin blooms, where toxic algae accumulate in mussels and other filter feeders, which becomes deadly if consumed.
So, although the system was influenced very strongly by the tsunami, it’s slowly recovering.
Presentations: Cultivation techniques II
The recurring themes in most presentations are about the importance of educating local people and create awareness. Both regarding how to grow and harvest seaweed, but also to explain the benefits and importance of creating an integrated aquaculture with many different species for an ecologically sustainable use of the ocean.
This is not a problem unique to the tropical countries. Ignorance of how to create sustainable aquaculture is found in all countries. When aquaculture first came into the limelight during the 70’s, it was first seen as the solution to the problem of protein deficiency. But it was soon discovered that large monocultures fed intensively, sometimes even with large amounts of antibiotics, were not as good as first believed. They created negative effects, and the general opinion about aquaculture turned to become negative.
To only cultivate large quantities of a single species that is in the top of the food chain is not the best way to engage in aquaculture. By co-culturing, as many gardeners know the profitability of, you can both reduce the negative effects of nutrients and also gain one or more additional products that provide income. Additionally, it provides a redundancy, not to put all eggs in one basket. Too high a density of a species makes it vulnerable to diseases and parasites. By growing more sparse, but overall more, you avoid risking the harvest to a nasty little parasite or a virus and you do not need to use antibiotics to the same extent.
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