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A preliminary evaluation of the red seaweed Gracilariopsis silvana, isolated from Colon, Panama, as a potential new agar-producing cultivar

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Abstract

Gracilariopsis, a genus of agar-producing red seaweeds with high economic value, plays an important role in food manufacturing, pharmaceutical processing, and modern biotechnology. In this study, a wild species of red seaweed from Panama was identified as Gracilariopsis silvana by anatomy and DNA sequence data. With an aim to evaluate the response of this species to environmental conditions, changes of its PSII behaviors when exposed to gradient temperatures, salinities, and irradiances were assessed using the chlorophyll (Chl) a fluorescence transient. The PSII behaviors of this seaweed had no significant variation when the water temperature ranged from 21 to 33 °C, salinity from 12 to 40‰, and irradiance from 4 to 160 μmol photons m−2 s−1. These observations suggest that this red seaweed is able to adapt to a wide range of temperatures and salinities and has a useful characteristic of adaptation to low irradiance. Based on these results, this Gracilariopsis species is proposed as a potentially excellent red seaweed for cultivation, with great potential for benthic seaweed cultivation in low-light water layers in tropical and temperate regions.

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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Amanda Burgueño of Global SLI for her advice in this study in following a good farm practice and Ms. Jeimy Gondola for her support in the laboratory, and Petro American Terminal S.A. for facilitating access to the areas near the ports that allowed for installation of the algal cultivation tanks. The authors would like to thank Dr. John van der Meer (Pan-American Marine Biotechnology Association) for his assistance with proofreading. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Dahai Gao for his generous donation of primers for rbcL.

Funding

This work was supported by the International Partnership Program, Bureau of International Cooperation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Grant No. GJHZ2039; Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Grant No. XDB42000000; Shandong Province Natural Science Foundation, Grant No. ZR2020QD101; and Key Program of Science and Technology Innovation in Ningbo, Grant No. 2019B10009. The transportation to visit the seaweed farms and seaweed sampling were donated by Gracilarias of Panama S.A. and Sea Farms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS and Shandong Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 7 Nanhai Road, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Mengjie Zhang, Hu Li, Junrui Xue, Tong Pang, Bangmei Xia & Jianguo Liu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Mengjie Zhang & Junrui Xue

  3. Laboratory for Marine Biology and Biotechnology, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Aoshanwei Town, 1 Wenhai Road, Jimo, 266237, Qingdao, China

    Jianguo Liu

  4. Rodman Marine Laboratory, Gracilarias de Panamá S.A, Panama, Panama

    Gloria Batista de Vega

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  1. Mengjie Zhang
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  2. Hu Li
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Correspondence to Jianguo Liu.

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Zhang, M., Li, H., Xue, J. et al. A preliminary evaluation of the red seaweed Gracilariopsis silvana, isolated from Colon, Panama, as a potential new agar-producing cultivar. J Appl Phycol 33, 4125–4136 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-021-02598-7

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