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VIDEO: Sargassum, floating brown seaweed, have grown in low nutrient waters of the North Atlantic Ocean for centuries. Scientists have discovered dramatic changes in the chemistry and composition of Sargassum, transforming. view more
Credit: Brian Lapointe, Ph.D.
For centuries, pelagic Sargassum, floating brown seaweed, have grown in low nutrient waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, supported by natural nutrient sources like excretions from fishes and invertebrates, upwelling and nitrogen fixation. Using a unique historical baseline from the 1980s and comparing it to samples collected since 2010, researchers from Florida Atlantic University s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and collaborators have discovered dramatic changes in the chemistry and composition of Sargassum, transforming this vibrant living organism into a toxic dead zone.
Sargassum Now Worldâs Largest Harmful Algal Bloom Due to Nitrogen
A photo taken this month shows Sargassum piled up on a beach in Palm Beach County, Florida. (Photo credit: Brian Lapointe, Ph.D.)
For centuries, pelagic
Sargassum, floating brown seaweed, have grown in low nutrient waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, supported by natural nutrient sources like excretions from fishes and invertebrates, upwelling and nitrogen fixation. Using a unique historical baseline from the 1980s and comparing it to samples collected since 2010, researchers from Florida Atlantic Universityâs Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and collaborators have discovered dramatic changes in the chemistry and composition of
Sugar kelp grown in Maine, also known as skinny kelp
For years, Scott Lindell has been interested in a big idea, food from the ocean that could feed the masses.
He started with farmed striped bass. Then he moved on to shellfish. These days, he’s researching seaweed.
“So sugar kelp is a type of kelp, a brown seaweed, 6 or 8 feet long, the blade is the majority of that but there’s a small what looks a stem, called the stype and then a holdfast, that holds the kelp to the rocks typically.”
Humans have eaten kelp for a long time. In Japan, in 703 AD, seaweed was such an important part of the national diet that the Emperor changed the law to allow people could pay their taxes with it. Kelp still a big part of the some Asian countries’ diets. But in the United States, it’s relatively new.
In the struggle to slow the runaway freight train of humanity s destructive impact on Earth, scientists are increasingly looking at the role our oceans can play.
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