Mariculture of Seaweeds

Abstract

The term `mariculture' has different meanings to individual workers. This chapter will consider mariculture within a rather narrow definition, viz. the growing of marine algae in artificial environments often enriched by the addition of nutrients. Such systems may involve structural modifications, e.g. nets, tanks, substrates etc., but the utilization of such modifications in natural environments without the additional nutrients is not regarded as strict mariculture. The increase of substrate area, especially for attachment, and hence the increase in biomass production per land area is the principal behind this work. Mariculture is aimed at increasing the biomass yield per substrate area and achieving this under controlled or semicontrolled conditions. So far mariculture efforts have followed two distinct paths: the culture of macroscopic algae (e.g. Eucheuma, Gigartina, Hypnea, Chondrus) for direct commercial use, and the culture of planktonic algae for use as food for herbivorous animals (e.g. shrimps, oysters). This latter may be regarded as mariculture of a simple one-step food chain (Fig. 8.1).