Largo, Danilo B. and Chung, Ik Kyo and Phang, Siew-Moi and Gerung, Grevo S. and Sondak, Calvyn Fredrik Aldus
(2017)
Impacts of Climate change
on Eucheuma-Kappaphycus Farming.
In:
Developments in Applied Phycology book series (DAPH).
SPRINGER, pp. 121-129.
ISBN 978-3-319-63497-5
Abstract
Climate change impacts all forms of life – including seaweeds! For farmed
Eucheuma/Kappaphycus the direct and indirect impacts have caused not only physical
damage to the crops but has also affected the eco-physiological, reproductive and metabolic
processes of the seaweed. As a result of their importance as sources of different types of
carrageenan, Eucheuma (iota)/Kappaphycus (kappa) have spread, through facilitated transfer,
from its original tropical farming sites in the Philippines, across several localities in the
Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Ocean warming has caused the ‘tropicalization’ of
sub-tropical waters of northeast Asia and South America, and more areas are becoming
increasingly conducive to Eucheuma/Kappaphycus farming. Increases in surface seawater
temperatures could have deleterious effects on reproductive capacity, including spore production,
germination, recruitment and growth which, coupled with the long-practiced clonal
propagation, have resulted in the declining productivity and quality of extracted colloids.
Global climate change and anomalous climatic events such as El Niño and La Niña have
increased the susceptibility of the selected cultivars of farmed eucheumatoids to bacterial
pathogens as a result of stressful abiotic conditions which are conducive to ‘ice-ice’ disease
and damaging impacts of epiphytism which have combined and literally wiped out activity
in some farms. Typhoons and storms, as well as heavy rainfall during the wet season,
increased in intensity by climate change, have also destroyed farms resulting in the loss of
investments and income for those workers dependent on seaweed cultivation as a cash generating
activity.
In addition, increased CO2 dissolution in the oceans has resulted in its acidification,
coupled with exposure of the surface-cultivated seaweeds to increased UV radiation (due to
ozone depletion), which could decrease the concentration of the seaweeds’ own protective
pigments, thereby resulting in photo-inhibition and abiotic stresses. All of the foregoing,individually and collectively, integrate to reduce daily growth rates. Reduced pH could also
lessen the spore germination capacity of cultivated eucheumatoids.
The combination of the above factors has produced an overall decline in cultivated
Eucheuma/Kappaphycus production. However, the efforts of many countries to increase
their total area of farming and improvement in farming techniques, ensures the world’s
overall production trend for these seaweeds of industrial value to be on the rise, in
general.
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