Automation Concepts for Industrial-Scale Production of Seaweed

In order to industrialize macroalgal cultivation in Norway, new automated methods and solutions for seeding, deployment and harvesting need to be developed. Today's solutions are time and resource demanding, still yielding volumes nationally in the range of 100–200 tons per year in total (not including wild harvest), while the potential is in the megaton range. Standardization of equipment and automation can be one way to upscale production. Here we present results from a design study of a module-based solution for industrial cultivation, with specific solutions for spinning of thin seedling strings onto longlines, and a robotic module for interaction with the submerged farm at deployment and harvest. A reduced-scale physical prototype of the farm concept with the robot has been built for testing of deployment and harvesting techniques. The concept has been named SPOKe: Standardized Production of Kelp.

Gathering in the nutrition system of rural Russian population of the South of Western Siberia: adaptation everyday practices as a factor of winning the Great Patriotic War

The article assesses the significance of foraging in life sustaining of rural Russian population in the war rear areas during the years of the Great Patriotic War. It is proved that a family’s domestic resources in the periods of adversity were presented by practices alternative to the homestead property, which were assuming by their nature for being based on natural resources of the vicinity. In everyday nutrition system it manifested itself in the changes of nutrition patterns accompanied by its restructuring consisting in replacement of the basic ingredients of traditional cuisine by the secondary ones, including introduction of eatable wild harvest and berries instead of national crops. The author analyzes the reasons and mechanisms, describes season procedures of gathering, the types of wild harvest and berries, their natural geographical conditioning, the ways of introducing them into the nutrition system, and methods of harvesting for preservation. The conclusion is made about the effectiveness of using oral history methods in studying under-investigated scientific issues of the Great Patriotic war related to the anthropological content on the basis of social memory.

Evaluation on the Legal Trade of Tokay gecko (Lacertidae; Gekkonidae; Gekko gecko Linnaeus, 1758) in Indonesia

Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko) is a large-sized gecko from the genus of Gekko, which is most commonly found from South Asia, southern China, and Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, these species are common to inhabit human-modified habitat in Sumatera, Borneo, Java, Bali, Lesser Sundas, Sulawesi, and Moluccas. In recent years, the demand for Tokay gekko with high use-value in both national and international markets has increased, one of which is used for traditional medicine. This situation raised the concern on the decreasing of the wild population and the validity of captive breeding programs that produced a large number of individuals. Several reports had estimated millions of individuals have been exported from Indonesia either legally or illegally, however, the exact number never been reported. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the trend on the harvested Tokay gecko and its origin based on the source code information. The data were collected from government records, including specimens harvested from the wild and specimens produced from captivity during 2013 - 2018 (six years). The results showed that the legally exported specimens were sourced from wild (W) and captive breeding (C or F). The total numbers of individuals exported from the wild harvest are 97.146, and all export realization is below the wild harvest quota. However, there are the large numbers of individuals exported and declared as specimens produced from the captive breeding facilities (6.965.000 with source code F, and 1.236.000 with source code C). More importantly, the high level of specimens produced from captive breeding facilities is unlikely to match with the biological capacity of this species. Therefore, we predict that specimens labeled captive breeding were likely sourced from the wild.

Diarrhetic Shellfish Toxin Monitoring in Commercial Wild Harvest Bivalve Shellfish in New South Wales, Australia

An end-product market survey on biotoxins in commercial wild harvest shellfish (Plebidonax deltoides, Katelysia spp., Anadara granosa, Notocallista kingii) during three harvest seasons (2015–2017) from the coast of New South Wales, Australia found 99.38% of samples were within regulatory limits. Diarrhetic shellfish toxins (DSTs) were present in 34.27% of 321 samples but only in pipis (P. deltoides), with two samples above the regulatory limit. Comparison of these market survey data to samples (phytoplankton in water and biotoxins in shellfish tissue) collected during the same period at wild harvest beaches demonstrated that, while elevated concentrations of Dinophysis were detected, a lag in detecting bloom events on two occasions meant that wild harvest shellfish with DSTs above the regulatory limit entered the marketplace. Concurrently, data (phytoplankton and biotoxin) from Sydney rock oyster (Saccostrea glomerata) harvest areas in estuaries adjacent to wild harvest beaches impacted by DSTs frequently showed elevated Dinophysis concentrations, but DSTs were not detected in oyster samples. These results highlighted a need for distinct management strategies for different shellfish species, particularly during Dinophysis bloom events. DSTs above the regulatory limit in pipis sampled from the marketplace suggested there is merit in looking at options to strengthen the current wild harvest biotoxin management strategies.