Marine scientists developing sustainable solutions to cattle industry's 'hot air' problem
Seaweed research is a ‘red hot’ topic at the moment with one particular species ‘blowing’ the others away with its environmental benefits.
Seaweed farming is happening globally as a source of human food, animal feed, pharmaceuticals, and other smart materials, but one variety has been relatively untouched and is proving to be the cream of the crop.
Asparagopsis, a red seaweed, has grabbed the attention of agricultural and science communities due to its ability to combat the amount of gas passed out of cattle and other livestock, reducing their methane emissions by almost 90 per cent.
Research has shown farming the wild product adjacent to coral reef systems could also be beneficial, by improving water quality, contributing to maintaining the health of the reef.
Researchers at CQUniversity’s Coastal Marine Ecosystems Research Centre (CMERC) based in Gladstone in Queensland are leading research into the offshore farming of this red seaweed and are excited by the commercial and environmental opportunities the underwater crop is unearthing.
PhD researcher Emma Theobald said there were still lots of challenges preventing the large-scale farming of this seaweed globally, but there were huge opportunities for Australia to capitalise on this emerging industry.
“Queensland has two species of this red seaweed, with one (Asparagopsis taxiformis) suited to warm water and the focus of my project,” explained Ms Theobald.
“My project is around the reproduction of the seaweed, so I’m looking at what conditions best suits the species – temperature, light and nutrients – to maximise its productivity.”
She said it was a challenging project due to the three-part life stage of the seaweed, but she hoped to be successful in triggering the spore production and developing techniques to grow the next life stage ready to be transferred to the ocean for further growth.
Ms Theobald said Asparagopsis also takes up nutrients really quickly and therefore farming the seaweed along the near-shore coastline could help prevent coral bleaching and protect the reef after heavy rainfall.
Ms Theobald’s research is being conducted as part of the Australian Seaweed Institute’s innovative, nature-based solution for seaweed Biofilters to help protect the Great Barrier Reef.
According to CMERC’s Seaweed Lead, Dr Manoj Kumar, understanding what triggers the reproduction in Asparagopsisis crucial not only to managing its life cycle, but ensuring consistent spore supply for seeding regardless of season.
“This project is of high importance for finding solutions to upscale biomass production in both land and ocean farming environments,” Dr Kumar said.
“By gaining insights into the reproductive mechanisms, researchers can initiate breeding efforts, refine protoplast isolation for efficient biomass generation, and employ genetic engineering methodologies to develop Asparagopsis varieties with desired traits, contributing to the sustainable growth and application of this valuable marine resource.”
Considering the huge commercial potential of Asparagopsis, CMERC’s PhD researcher Najeen Rula is looking at developing sustainable ways of harvesting the seaweed.
“I’m currently conducting field observations and modelling to study its distribution and growth patterns, and field experiments to determine the effects of harvesting on its growth and reproduction,” she explained.
“All this information is fundamental for the sustainable use of this resource.
“Part of my study will also look at the potential of harvesting as a means to prevent seaweed overgrowth in corals or artificial substrates such as wharves or pontoons.”
CMERC’s red seaweed projects have been sponsored by the Australian Seaweed Institute and FutureFeed.
Transcript
My name's Emma. I am a PhD student at CQUniversity and I'm part of the Coastal Marine Ecosystems Research Centre in Gladstone. So I'm studying seaweed farming. Seaweed farming is happening all around the world for a number of reasons. It's a good source of human food animal feed, pharmaceuticals, there's all sorts of smart materials being made out of it now. But at the moment Australia doesn't really do much seaweed farming. It's quite a new area and there's a species that everyone is particularly interested in in Australia and that's called Asparagopsis. So we've got some here, it's a red seaweed and it has an interesting use in that if you feed it to cows in small quantities it reduces methane emissions from the cows by up to 90% which is amazing obviously for tackling global warming the tricky thing is that no one has really farmed this species at scale yet around the world. We have two species of Asparagopsis here in Queensland. This one prefers warm water and that's the one that I'm focusing on and my project is around trying to get it to reproduce so working out the right conditions that it likes for reproduction so I'm looking at temperature, light and nutrients. It's a bit like farming in the ocean and my project is actually being sponsored by the Australian Seaweed Institute so they're trying to establish a network of seaweed biofilters they're calling it so that's these seaweed farms will help tap up the nutrients and then you can harvest the seaweeds and turn them into products. It's definitely a bit challenging compared to other seaweed species. It has three different life stages so this is just one life stage and in the ocean these ones are quite hard to find. They'll sort of travel maybe a bit with the currents but the stage that we're really interested in is much larger. It's about 15 cm long it kind of looks frondy bit like a fox tail so my aim is to get these guys to reproduce with spores and then we'll seed those spores on and grow them out in the ocean and that will become the bigger life stage. The seaweed takes up nutrients really quickly so when you have heavy rainfall and lots of nutrients flow out to the reef those nutrients can actually make the reef more susceptible to coral bleaching and so farming this along the nearshore coastline is actually a really good way to help protect the reef as well as creating these products that can be used in agriculture.
