Macroalgal germplasm banking for conservation, food security, and industry

Rachael Wade, Simona Augyte, Maddelyn Harden, Sergey Nuzhdin, Charles Yarish and Filipe Alberto

PLOS Biology, 2020, vol. 18, issue 2, 1-10

Abstract: Ex situ seed banking was first conceptualized and implemented in the early 20th century to maintain and protect crop lines. Today, ex situ seed banking is important for the preservation of heirloom strains, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration, and diverse research applications. However, these efforts primarily target microalgae and terrestrial plants. Although some collections include macroalgae (i.e., seaweeds), they are relatively few and have yet to be connected via any international, coordinated initiative. In this piece, we provide a brief introduction to macroalgal germplasm banking and its application to conservation, industry, and mariculture. We argue that concerted effort should be made globally in germline preservation of marine algal species via germplasm banking with an overview of the technical advances for feasibility and ensured success.Seaweed germplasm banking is an important resource for biodiversity conservation, human food security, and industry innovation. This Perspective article maintains that an international, coordinative initiative is needed to fully develop and capitalize on this resource.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000641 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file ... 00641&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pbio00:3000641

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000641

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Biology from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosbiology ().