Integrated study of seaweeds of economic importance

• Grant number: 91/03590-2
• Support Opportunities: Research Projects - Thematic Grants
• Start date: May 01, 1992
• End date: May 31, 1996
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Botany
• Principal Investigator: Eurico Cabral de Oliveira Filho
• Grantee: Eurico Cabral de Oliveira Filho
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Marine algae constitute resources of great economic value as yet underused in Brazil due to certain factors, among which we should highlight the lack of a deeper understanding of these plants. So it is that our country still spends several million dollars each year on the importation of products and substances that could be produced here. The objective of this project is to fill in some of the gaps in knowledge which we consider to be fundamental for Brazil to proceed to a sustained exploitation of our stocks of marine seaweed through a rational handling of the natural banks and the development of mariculture techniques, as well as a better selection and diversification of the species which it currently industrializes. We intend to reach this objective through an approach of case studies of selected species in virtue of their commercial value. These studies will include various areas of biological research so as to obtain an integrated vision as possible of the selected organisms, trying to accumulate information that leads ultimately to a domestication of these resources, as a single effective form of exploiting them rationally. The species selected for study are among the most promising for commercial exploitation in addition to already being reasonably well known in our laboratory which increases the chances of success. The planned research ranges from traditional Taxonomy to Molecular Biology, passing through physiology, Genetics, cultivation in laboratory, in tanks and in the sea, extraction and analysis of chemical substances. In addition to considering points clearly of Applied Science the project involves current academic studies and will have an important role in the education and training of young researchers who will have an important role to play, having also participated in discussions during its elaboration. The project will have the collaboration of some researchers from the Country and from abroad, who have greater competency in areas in which our group still has little experience. (AU)