Surfing amongst Oil-Tankers: Connecting Emerging Research Fields to the Current International Landscape

Abstract

The COST Action Phycomorph (FA1406) was initiated in 2015 from a handful of academic researchers, and now joins together 19 European countries and nine international partners. Phycomorph's goal is to coordinate and develop research on developmental biology in macroalgae. This is an ambitious project, as the related scientific community is small, the concepts are complex, and there is currently limited knowledge of these organisms and there are few technologies to study them. Here we report the first step in achieving this enterprise, the creation of the Phycomorph network. We share the associated strengths, pitfalls, and prospects for setting up the network in the hope that this might guide similar efforts in other fields.

Seaweed reproductive biology: environmental and genetic controls

“…The growing demand for seaweed resources, either as feed, food or biomass, creates a need for sustainable seaweed exploitation. This societal demand presents a direct incentive to alleviate a number of major bottlenecks which currently impede mariculture practices (Charrier et al 2017). An excellent knowledge of seaweed life cycles, including better control of the different developmental stages, which allows handling of seaweed in an aquaculture setting, is imperative.…”

Analysis of algal growth- and morphogenesis- promoting factors in an integrated multi-trophic aquaculture system for farming Ulva spp.

“…Seaweed aquaculture, alone or integrated into animal production, requires a fundamental understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms controlling macroalgal life cycles, from the generation of germ cells to the growth and fertility of the adult organisms (Charrier et al 2017). In this study, the input water to the farm from the surrounding lagoon (Ria de Aveiro) as well as several points within the IMTA system itself were analysed for the activity of bacterial signals (not yet structure-elucidated) required for Ulva's develop- ) concentrations measured over the 1 d of sampling and compared with the water from the entrance pond.…”

“…development, mature blade cells of U. mutabilis excrete regulatory factors into their cell walls and the environment. These factors, a glycoprotein (sporulation inhibitor [SI]-1) and a low molecular weight factor (SI-2), are essential for the mainte-nance of the vegetative state (Stratmann et al 1996, Vesty et al 2015 and are of great interest in algal aquaculture management (Charrier et al 2017).…”

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“…There has been increasing interest in defining macroalgae-associated bacterial communities and macroalgal development and morphogenesis 3 . Epibiosis is a process by which bacteria frequently colonizes on biotic surface.…”