Enrichment of nutritional compounds in seaweeds via abiotic stressors in integrated aquaculture

Doron Yehoshua Ashkenazi, Yael Segal, Shoshana Ben-Valid, Guy Paz, Merav Nadav Tsubery, Eitan Salomon, Avigdor Abelson, Álvaro Israel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Seaweeds may contain significant amounts of essential proteins, carbohydrates, and minerals, offering an alternative, sustainable, healthy food source from the sea. However, there are yet challenges impending their full exploitation. Our study presents an innovative, two-step aquaculture approach integrating seaweeds and finfish, dedicated to enrich seaweeds with nutritional compounds. The approach involves diverting fish effluents rich in nutrients into a series of seaweed cultivation tanks. Then, the seaweeds were exposed to short-term abiotic stressors (namely, high irradiance, nutrient starvation, and high salinity) to stimulate synthesis of desired ingredients in their tissues. Our methodology enabled high growth rates of up to 25% seaweed biomass increase per day, with significant enhancements in the amount of protein, starch, and minerals within days. Moreover, the seaweeds presented elevated bioremediation capabilities assimilating the ammonia nitrogen, NO3 and PO4 with high uptake rates, and with 50–75% removal efficiencies. Industrial relevance: The rising public awareness to quality of healthier food products has stimulated growing demand for seaweed supply. Our new approach suggests a promising direction toward the transition from seaweed production of raw, commodity seaweed biomass, to a tailored production of functional seaweeds, enriched with valued compounds that can be utilized in the emerging food and health industries.

Original languageEnglish
Article number103067
JournalInnovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies
Volume80
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Funding

DYA is thankful for the financial support provided by Yohai Ben-Nun Foundation for Marine and Freshwater Sciences and The Yehoshua Salti Foundation . We appreciate Lev-Yam Aquaculture Ltd. for providing the sea bream fish. We also wish to thank Alla Zalmanzon for her help with the protein analyzes. DYH would like to dedicate this work and express his love and gratitude to his long-time childhood English teacher Ilana Ken of blessed memory. This study was partially funded by the Ministry of Health , Israel, grant number 3-16052 given to AI.

FundersFunder number
Yehoshua Salti Foundation
Yohai Ben-Nun Foundation for Marine and Freshwater Sciences
Ministry of Health, State of Israel3-16052

    Keywords

    • Bioproducts
    • Integrated aquaculture
    • Minerals
    • Protein
    • Seaweeds
    • Starch

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Enrichment of nutritional compounds in seaweeds via abiotic stressors in integrated aquaculture'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this