Maud Benoit-Le gélébart1, Aurélie Prêchoux1, Franck Hennequart1 Claudie Iborra2, Thomas Scourzic2
1ALGAIA, Research and Development Centre, 91 rue Edouard Branly, 50000 Saint Lô, France, 2SEANEO, 65 Rue Lieutenant Lumo, 40 000 Mont de Marsan, France
Correspondence: Dr Maud Benoit-Le Gélébart, maud.benoit@algaia.com
LOCAL is a French project dedicated to the cultivation of Ulva sp., Chaetomorpha sp., Cladophora sp. and Gracilaria sp. on natural saline lagoon located in south of France. The development of seaweed aquaculture in salt marshes and the salinity stress induced on the cultivated species could lead to new sustainable sourcing for various applications improving quality and productivity aspects.
The main objective was to evaluate growth and biomass yield, as well as the impact of environmental factors such as salinity, nutrients concentrations, turbidity on chemical composition of each species. Besides, the chemical characterisation from the 2-years seasonality study (2020 and 2021) focused on neutral carbohydrates, uronic acids sugars, amino acids and minerals profiles. Comparison with wild feedstock was highlighted, showing interesting composition potentially related to salinity stress. Then, some extraction protocols were applied to produce polysaccharides and amino acids extracts from cultivated biomasses. The project unveils opportunities and provides tools for the development of innovative sourcing from saline environment in south of France. Main stress response will be presented including metabolites profile in those tailored biomasses. The production of extract will be also benchmarked with an evaluation of potential applications in several markets (cosmetics, feed, food, etc.). Furthermore, the impact of environmental conditions on rheological properties of agar extracted from two Gracilaria sp. was assessed, leading to interesting potential applications for the texturizing market.