By-catch fauna: a chemical universe to be explored

• Grant number: 14/08787-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: July 07, 2014
• End date: March 06, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Organic Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Wagner Vilegas
• Grantee: Marcelo Marucci Pereira Tangerina
• Supervisor: Russell Greig Kerr
• Host Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus Experimental do Litoral Paulista. São Vicente , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), Canada
• Associated to the scholarship: 11/23159-0 - By-Catch: A Chemical Universe to be Explored, BP.DR

Abstract

The waste of resources from biodiversity is huge in Brazil and worldwide. The wide variety of marine organisms (algae, mollusks, sponges, corals, etc.) that are caught together with fish and shrimp is completely ignored as a source of new molecules. Due to the low value, the fishermen despise them, because they are not marketable as food. The shrimp fishery is one of the most striking to the marine ecosystems: the use of systems of seabed trawling causes the destruction of the entire region where it is employed, capturing up to 21kg of by-catch/kg of shrimp. Several substances found in marine organisms are widely applied in many areas to improve the quality life of humanity, including the area of food, power generation and medicine. Given this situation, this project aims to study the invertebrate species and the microbe associated from by-catch shrimp fishery on the coast of São Paulo, in order to obtain molecules of potential economic interest, which can increase the value of wasted material.