The Effect of Nutrient Availability and Light Conditions on the Growth and Intracellular Nitrogen Components of Land-Based Cultivated Saccharina latissima (Phaeophyta)

Abstract

With the increasing interest and activities regarding seaweed cultivation in Europe, it is becoming crucial to utilize the opportunities that lies within environmental resources, such as light and nutrients, to produce biomass of a high yield and quality. The chemical composition of seaweed varies between seasons and depths as an effect of resource supply and environmental conditions. These factors are particularly important to assess for economically feasible species like the kelp Saccharina latissima. This paper examines how differences in light conditions and nutrient availability affect the growth and intracellular nitrogen in S. latissima. This was done through cultivating sporophytes in land-based tanks with four different combinations of high/low light and high/low nutrient supply over an experimental period of 20 days, with measurements of growth rate and subsequent analysis of tissue nitrogen metabolites. The results revealed that the mean growth rate and the intracellular nitrogen components of the sporophytes were positively related to the external nitrate concentration during the experimental period, indicating that S. latissima requires high nutrient concentration to maintain a rapid growth.

Modeling the Growth Potential of the Kelp Saccharina Latissima in the North Atlantic

“…On the eastern side of the basin, the growth boundary follows contours of the mean nitrate concentration (between 0.2 and 0.5 mmol/m 3 ), implying nitrate limitation in this area. This is consistent with observed minimum nitrate concentration limits of S. latissima with a significant drop in growth rate below 0.4 mmol/m 3 (Jevne et al, 2020). Our results are consistent with the surveys reported in van Den Hoek (1982) and Breeman (1988) who discussed the role of temperature in controlling the growth range of various species of seaweed in coastal waters.…”

Modelling spatial variability of cultivated Saccharina latissima in a Dutch coastal bay shows benefits of co-cultivation with shellfish

“…(Andersen et al, 2013;Bruhn et al, 2016;Diehl et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2022), our results highlight that the low winter temperature in shallow waters can substantially diminish the growth rate. Nitrogen availability, another main limiting factor of S. latissima production in our study, has been extensively considered to affect the seaweed growth rate and internal nitrogen content, particularly after the spring bloom in coastal systems (Chapman et al, 1978;Wheeler and North, 1981;Ahn et al, 1998;Jevne et al, 2020).…”

“…In the emerging efforts of farming S. latissima, large spatial variability in its yield and chemical composition has been found within and among ecosystems. The potential production of S. latissima along the Norwegian coast depends substantially on latitude and distance from the coast (Broch et al, 2019;Forbord et al, 2020). In the relatively homogeneous Danish estuary Limfjorden, yields of the cultivated S. latissima vary spatially by a factor of 10, and the pigment and metal contents by a factor of 2-5 (Bruhn et al, 2016).…”

Sustainable resource production for manufacturing bioactives from micro‐ and macroalgae: Examples from harvesting and cultivation in the Nordic region

“…This occurs during the period from late fall to spring along the Norwegian coastline, depending on the latitude (Broch et al, 2019). Nitrogen enrichment can also be accomplished by pumping deep water into land‐based tank systems (Jevne et al, 2020) or by moving the cultivation lines to deeper depths when the nutrients are depleted in the surface layer due to microalgae blooms. However, if the main goal is to produce the highest harvestable yield, adequate light must be provided to the sporophytes, together with high ambient N, to increase their length and weight.…”