DECEMBEROCTOBER 2020 2019

Dear GSSTAR friends, In addition, I’ve had the opportunity over the last month to speak to our 11 early career Welcome to our fourth newsletter for the Glo- researchers about their aspirations for the fu- balSeaweedSTAR programme. What a year it ture and to share my experiences of building a has been. We are just keeping a close eye on career in academia with them. From the feed- the COVID-19 developments and adjusting our back, this capacity building activity has proved working practices accordingly to make sure all invaluable to them and I’m looking forward to our team are kept safe and well. repeating these one-to-one sessions with them The GSSTAR team though have continued, de- again next year. spite the current challenges, to work extremely Finally, I can’t conclude without sharing the hard on analysing existing datasets and writing wonderful news of four new additions to up work. We’ve had another paper published the GSSTAR team: congratulations to Euan on biosecurity policy and legislation of the Paterson, Iona Campbell, Sarah Forgrieve and Tanzanian seaweed aquaculture industry, led Rema Sibonga on the births of their beautiful by one of our early career researchers and we baby boys! have a further four papers in review! I hope that you are all enjoying reading We’ve also been busy attending online scien- our newsletters and again. I would just like to tific conferences and webinars, something that thank everyone who has supported us and we would never of dreamed about doing just a wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year ago! We’ve even had our very own senior Year. researcher, Dr Flower Msuya speaking about seaweed farming in Tanzania and the Global- Stay safe and well. SeaweedSTAR programme at a side event at the UN General Assembly meeting, which went Liz Cottier-Cook, Lead Scientist virtual this year for the first time in its history.

Making a seaweed manifesto see page 3

Dr Flower Msuya joined experts leading a discussion on the new Seaweed Manifesto Dr Flower Msuya (left) and Sadock Rusekwa on fieldwork Farmers to benefit from native species research Team Tanzania is on the hunt samples from Tanga (five sites in Tanga, two areas in Zanzibar for native seaweeds to help off the north coast), Zanzibar and one area in Kunduchi near seaweed farmers regain con- Islands (four sites) and along Dar es Salaam. trol of their crops. Dar es Salaam (five sites). DNA studies will be conduct- The team, comprising Early The main aim is to collect ed to ascertain the native Career Researcher Sadock samples of native varieties of eucheumatoid species. Work Rusekwa, DP Leader Dr Flow- the farmed eucheumatoids and started during the south-east er Msuya and co-DP Leader Dr study possibilities of propagat- monsoon winds (August-Sep- Amelia Buriyo, has been out in ing them into enough biomass tember). the field collecting seaweeds to supply to farmers with the The GlobalSeaweedSTAR Tan- for taxonomy studies as well aim of complementing/replac- zanian team is planning to car- as samples aimed at enriching ing the imported species that ry out a similar survey during the University of Dar es Sa- are affected by climate change. the north-east monsoons (hot laam herbarium. The team has so far found na- season) during January-Febru- tive eucheumatoids in one area So far, they have collected ary 2021.

globalseaweed.org

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Successful seaweed industry can help tackle global poverty

A world-renowned seaweed Seaweed farming is the fastest Oban, leads the GlobalSea- expert has told a meeting of growing of all aquaculture sec- weedSTAR programme and UN representatives and global tors globally, worth over USD is a major contributor to the organisations today (Thurs- 5 billion annually. Dr Msuya manifesto. day, September 24) how the told the meeting that this cru- Programme leader Prof Eliza- seaweed industry is helping cial industry faces immediate beth Cottier-Cook, of SAMS, people in developing nations threat from climate change and said: “The seaweed industry escape poverty. a lack of research in this area. is crucial to so many coastal Dr Flower Msuya, from Tan- She said: “For a brighter fu- communities in the developing zania, represented GlobalSea- ture for the industry, we need world. weedSTAR at the meeting, to link farmers to researchers, “It provides income to millions Seaweed Manifesto: Towards governments, the UN, NGOs of families, often allowing Implementation, which took and businesses to give them women to become economi- place as a side-event at the courage to continue. We also cally active in areas where few 75th UN General Assembly. need to support research and other opportunities exist. innovation, which will help the The Seaweed Manifesto, industry overcome the chal- “I’m delighted that a special developed by Lloyd’s Register lenges associated with climate side-event dedicated to sea- Foundation and the UN Global change, such as warming weed was held during the Compact, defines a vision for waters. 75th anniversary UN General global seaweed production. Assembly, giving it a global This manifesto is seen as a “Seaweed-producing nations platform from which to high- crucial step in safeguarding should also be encouraged to light key challenges and dis- and developing the industry, use their own produce, rath- cuss how to grow the industry which is well established in er than exporting all the raw sustainably.” Asia and parts of Africa and material, and we must create South America, but is also an attractive environment that More information on the Sea- expanding in other parts of the encourages young people to weed Manifesto can be found world. join the industry.” here: https://seaweedmanifes- to.com/ Dr Msuya said: “Seaweeds The Scottish Association for have been proven to be a live- Marine Science (SAMS), in lihood enhancer in emerging countries in Asia, Africa, South America and so on. It employs What is the Seaweed Manifesto? a large number of farmers, This seaweed manifesto is a visionary document outlining how who benefit directly from the seaweed can contribute to delivering on the sustainable devel- industry, together with their opment goals. It defines a vision for the industry, explores the families and communities opportunities and benefits, as well as outlining the challenges around them, including service and barriers for responsible development of the industry. providers. The focus is on the untapped potential, which might not be “For example, the industry em- met without new thought leadership and convening power to ploys 30,000 farmers in Tan- improve knowledge and expertise, develop new funding initi- zania and is the third largest atives and influence policy makers, regulators and consumers. in the Zanzibar islands, where Therefore, the manifesto proposes a set of success factors for it contributes around 7.6 per all stakeholders, and provides the basis for different initiatives cent of the islands’ GDP.” that will be required. Promotion for STAR scientist Congratulations to GSSTAR scientist Poong Sze Wan for her promotion to senior lectur- er at the Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Malaya. Joining the programme as an early career researcher (ECR), Sze Wan has been key to the work being done in Malaysia and is involved in two of the work packages. She is the ECR for WP1 and leads a separate GSSTAR Research Fund project looking into the phylogeography and population genetics of epi- phytic filamentous red algae on eucheumatoids. As part of WP3, she is in charge of the work on the genetic diversity of Indonesian eucheumatoids. Her new role will involve more teaching, on top of her re- search work. GSSTAR Malaysian researcher Poong Sze Wan

Aquaculture ‘makeover’ to ensure future expansion Capacity Building Fund A paper from GSSTAR scientist Dr Grant Stentiford has called accepting applications for a ‘makeover’ of evidence and policy in the global aquaculture GlobalSeaweedSTAR offers sector to prepare it for future expansion. financial support for capaci- One third of all animal protein produced on the planet comes ty building activities, that will from the water, half of this is from aquaculture. Seaweed con- strengthen the seaweed indus- tributes a significant additional contribution, mainly in tropical try in developing countries or waters. the UK.

With a projected flat lining of output from the global capture This could be used to support fishery in the next three decades, aquaculture will become travel, online events or online the dominant provider of protein from aquatic habitats to a courses. population projected to reach 10 billion by 2050. For eligibility, see https:// His paper, published in Nature Food, considers this projected globalseaweed.org/?page_ growth through the lens of One Health - the philosophy that id=3531 simply reminds us that the health of all life on earth is inter-con- nected. Virtual lesson takes a deeper look into seaweed

Among the fascinating features of seaweeds is the diversity of other organisms that live on (epiphytes), in (endophytes) or partly on and partly in (epi-en- dophytes) these macroalgae. One of the challenges when studying diversity and function of this holobiome, i.e. the host and its associated prokaryotes (e.g. bacteria) and eukaryotes (e.g. green filamentous endo- phytic algae and oomycetes) is how to observe the organisms within the seaweed host. With this in mind, GSSTAR scientist Prof Juliet Brodie led a virtual histology knowledge exchange ‘mini-meeting’ in Sep- embedding does not work well middle (medulla) and can be tember for sharing experiences with these seaweeds because difficult to find in very thin working with carrageenophyte the wax barely penetrates the sections. I attempted a virtual crop species Eucheuma, Kappa- seaweed - use of resins and demonstration from my din- phycus and our model species mixed staining gave better ing room table converted to a Chondrus crispus, which has results. ‘mini-lab’ without chopping off anything vital with the razor also been harvested for carra- “For thicker sections (c. 30 blade.” geen, a valuable polysaccharide µm), hand sectioning is a good used in the food industry. technique, particularly for the The early career researchers Prof Brodie said: “For making green endophytes because (ECRs) and postdocs all con- thin sections (c. 2-5 µm thick) they ramify through the outer tributed in different ways and to study under the microscope, part of the seaweed (cortex) a lively discussion provided the traditional method of wax and in some cases into the future direction for this work.

Seaweed disease on ice in project breakthrough

The GSSTAR team has de- gae, but not so much used for Cryopreservation of such veloped a method to cryo- pathogens that infect those pathogen cultures secures preserve Paraphysoderma algae. their long-term availability to sedebokerense, a pathogen researchers and consequently If not freeze-preserved, then that infects green microalgae allows future investigation of such pathogen cultures often of industrial interest and that the interaction between mi- need constant ‘taking care of’ can have a great impact on the croalga and pathogen. on a very regular basis. biomass production of those Read the paper at: https://doi. algae. This is a very time-consuming org/10.1080/00318884.2020. process and always bears the Such methods are commonly 1827825 risk of losing the pathogen used on a variety of microal- culture. Seaweed fund helps to boost business and save lives in Zanzibar

A project funded by the GlobalSeaweedSTAR research team to identify ways to support sea- research programme is teaching seaweed farm- weed farmers, especially women, to be resilient ers in Zanzibar how to swim and survive at sea, on climate change and practice deep farming to in response to their businesses moving further increase income. offshore.

Seaweed farmers in Zanzibar face challenges related to climate change, which is impacting their capacity to farm sufficient quality seaweed to meet the global demands. One of the effects of climate change forces farmers to have to farm the seaweed in deeper waters. This chal- lenge is especially hard on women who current- ly make up more than 80% of seaweed farmers and who are more vulnerable to drowning. At the same time, production and prices of sea- weed over the past decade have fallen. The project, Building Resilience of Seaweed Farmers in Zanzibar, received a grant from the Specifically, the funding covered 15 days of GlobalSeaweedSTAR Capacity Building Fund training on sea safety and swimming skills; and will work with 120 seaweed farmers – 108 training on innovative seaweed farming prac- of whom are women – from three shehia (dis- tices in deep water; and the formation of village trict wards). savings and loans associations and training to strengthen financial the management, literacy Project leader Alice Mushi, from the Milele Zan- and leadership and negotiation skills of all 150 zibar Foundation, said: “We aim to assess and seaweed farmers. build evidence around how best to support and empower both individual seaweed farmers and GlobalSeaweedSTAR is funded by UK Research seaweed associations. and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund. “For individual seaweed farmers, the research will assess how building the capacity of women Programme leader Prof Elizabeth Cottier-Cook to swim and how enabling both women and said: “The Building Resilience of Seaweed men to utilize innovative production techniques Farmers in Zanzibar project entirely fits in with to be able to farm greater quality seaweed in the aims of GlobalSeaweedSTAR, which is greater quantities, is able to improve the liveli- designed to improve the resilience and sustain- hoods of individual seaweed farmers. ability of the seaweed sector globally.

“For seaweed associations, the research will as- As one of the world-leading producers of sea- sess how strengthening the associations’ gov- weed, Tanzania, and Zanzibar in particular, is ernance, leadership and savings and lending key to the success and sustainability of the capacities will enable them to provide greater global industry. This industry is facing a huge social and financial support and advocacy for challenge in climate change, which has sig- the seaweed farming communities.” nalled a rise in pests and diseases in crops and has highlighted gaps in biosecurity planning Funding from GlobalSeaweedSTAR helped the across many countries.”