Acronym Breed4Kelp2Feed
Category
Marine Biotechnology
Title Breeding kelp for efficient and sustainable utilization of marine resources Programme National Programme
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National Coordinator Åshild Ergon Coordinator email ashild.ergon@nmbu.no
Coordinator institution
NMBU - Norwegian University of Life Sciences (Norway)
Institutions involved
NA - SINTEF Ocean (Norway) ,
Start year 2018 End year 2023 Funding (€) € 804,158 Website https://prosjektbanken.forskningsradet.no/en/project/FORISS/280534?Kilde=FORISS&distribution=Ar&chart=bar&calcType=funding&Sprak=no&sortBy=date&sortOrder=desc&resultCount=30&offset=60&TemaEmne.2=M%C3%A5l+14+Liv+under+vann Summary "Breed4Kelp2Feed aims to initiate breeding of sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima, a marine brown macroalgae) designed for sustainable production of high yields. In addition to providing food, feed and highly valued chemicals, cultivation of kelp contributes to carbon binding in the oceans. Cultivation of kelp is rapidly expanding worldwide, and Norway, with its extremely long coastline and well-established aquaculture industry, has a huge potential for value creation from kelp cultivation. Currently, only natural populations of kelp is cultivated in Norway, and there is a great potential to exploit genetic variation to produce material with improved characteristics from a cultivation and usage point of view, such as higher growth rate and biomass production, higher protein content, resistance to epiphytes or pathogenic organisms, low content of iodine or other minerals. Genetic improvement has been instrumental for establishing a cost-effective salmon industry in Norway, and breeding of kelp is likely to play a similar role for the future aquaculture industry. Kelps are important habitat-forming species in marine ecosystems, and measures to prevent any harmful effects of kelp cultivation on natural kelp populations must be considered and implemented if required. One such measure may be the development and cultivation of sterile, non-reproductive kelp that cannot hybridize with natural populations.
Our goals are to: 1) develop triploid and sterile sporophytes of S. latissima, 2) identify the most optimal breeding program for kelp, 3) test the feasibility and outcome of a simple breeding program based on local populations, and 4) obtain knowledge on the genetics of S. latissima.
We have experienced that to measure nuclear DNA content with flow cytometry does not work as well for sugar kelp as it does for higher plants. With another alternative, but laborious method (staining, fluorescence-microscopy and image analysis) we have measured DNA content in different cell and tissue types and found that it varies considerably among different life stages and sexes. There is also a lot of variation within female gametophytes, and apparently also between individuals at the gametophyte stage. In addition, these is variation among different tissue types in the sporophytes. These results are published (Goecke et al., Marine Biotechnology, 2022). Experiments with creating triploid kelp is underway but not yet completed."
Keywords
Algae;
Aquaculture development;
Genetic;
Marine Region
76
Not associated to marine areas
0
Marine Region Map
