The Life-history-phase matters in Ulva aquaculture: New article

Recombinant seedlings performed better than clonal individuals

Our latest article “Closed life-cycle aquaculture of sea lettuce (Ulva fenestrata): performance and biochemical profile differ in early developmental stages” is now available with open access at Frontiers in Marine Science.

Seedlings of recombinant gametophytes of the crop Ulva fenestrata
Picture: Sophie Steinhagen

Our article describes how clonal and recombinant gametohytes of the crop species Ulva fenestrata significantly differ in their ontogenetic development, thallus growth, and biochemical composition. In extensive hatchery experiments we can show that generally, recombinant gametophytes stood out with a faster ontogenetic development, faster growth rates, and higher amounts of commercially attractive biochemical compounds (e.g. proteins and fatty acids).

Such novel results are not only aiming to support the growing Blue Economy but also contribute an easily replicable development assessment tool to select best performing source material for attractive commercial seaweed aquaculture. That such information is needed in the developing aquaculture markets gets supported by the fact that seedling hatcheries form the basis to any large-scale seaweed cultivation that is independent from natural stocks.

Thereby our study supports a shift towards a sustainable, closed life-cycle seaweed aquaculture system.

%d bloggers like this: