Algae, its service, its secrets, its threats

The sea! Mankind's greatest resource has held his fascination through all ages and has seen some of his most illustrious achievements. From sailing across it's turbulent surface, to deep-sea exploration in its turbid, dark depths. Yet, so much of it remains unknown.

Health

Alga constitutes the major component of plankton - both phytoplankton and zooplankton. Plankton in marine environments is the basic, essential ingredient to the food chain of all aquatic life. Changes in algae levels and species types (of which there are about 17,000 known types) have an enormous effect on the biodiversity of aquatic life forms, which in turn may affect the economies of nations. Understanding what causes these changes and their impact, is therefore important, and needs to be assessed in conjunction with natural and man made influences. Decline in salinity is perhaps one of the major causes for the change in both algae species and volume. For this reason a consortium of European universities undertook a tri-pronged investigation to evaluate the evolutionary and genetic diversification and adaptation of macroalgal species. The first step was to establish an effective-reference culture across a wide salinity gradient. This was followed by an investigation into growth, dispersal and survival trends through varying saline ecosystems in an effort to establish its phylogenic trend. The final prong was to explore the genetic variance of macroalgae found within a single region. The objectives of these studies were deemed important in order to establish an understanding of long-term effects/changes on algae ecosystems. While results where somewhat surprising regarding a number of algae studied, especially in regards to their migration and dispersal criteria, it was concluded that further research is needed. It was found that salinity content was important as was dispersal barriers, but that their influence was mainly on specific species. Additional results showed that tetrasporophytes for example, had significant variation between regions, while the differences between parasporophytes were not so pronounced. Other conclusions where drafted, one of which indicates that algae responses to salinity and other factors may be similar across various regions without common causes being present. Further growth and morphologic investigations are necessary in order to better comprehend biogeographic data.