The World of Seaweeds

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Background

Marine macroalgae provide us with great ecological and economic services. We use hundreds of species worldwide mainly from three large groups, the red macroalgae, the brown, and the green ones: the seaweeds, which are destined for human or animal consumption or the production of hydrocolloids and other chemicals. In 2018, more than 32 million tons of seaweed were produced worldwide. Despite their importance and increasing interest, our knowledge is still insufficient to sustain industrial and governmental expectations, compared to land plants and agricultural practices. Seaweed culture uses traditional low-tech approaches in most parts of the world, where the production relies more on luck rather than on the deep knowledge of seaweed biology and culture conditions required for the best production, not to mention the occurrence of plagues with still unknown remedies. Environmental costs or social-economics aspects are rarely evaluated. There is still much to understand about seaweed to consider it a potential, sustainable and strong industrial sector.

This Research Topic aims to gather relevant findings in the field of seaweeds to contribute to their trustworthy sustainable exploitation as it is expected in the future. To contribute to fill gaps of knowledge of the basic and applied aspects with important information for the sake of the sector, which otherwise only could be find scattered in a plethora of official reports and journal sources.

The scope of this Research Topic on "The World of Seaweeds" is to publish specific and interdisciplinary research that advances our understanding of basic and applied aspects of seaweeds that supports and may improve future advances towards a sustainable seaweed industry. Original research on the following themes will be welcomed:

• growth and development control

• life-cycle, genetics and breeding

• diseases

• biorefinery and fine chemical production

• ecological and environmental aspects of field cultures

• social and economic dimensions of seaweed farming

• nutritional value and consumption regulations

Keywords: seaweeds, growth, development life-cycle, genetics, breeding, diseases, biorefinery, fine chemical, culture, environmental assesment, bioeconomy, nutritional value, consumption regulations

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