Saving the Planet with Appropriate Biotechnology: 5. An Action Plan

We evaluate suggestions to harness the ability of calcifying organisms (molluscs, crustacea, corals and coccolithophore algae) to remove permanently CO2 from the atmosphere into solid (crystalline) CaCO3 for atmosphere remediation. Here, we compare this blue carbon with artificial/industrial Carbon dioxide Capture & Storage (CCS) solutions. An industrial CCS facility delivers, at some cost, captured CO2, nothing more. But aquaculture enterprises cultivating shell to capture and store atmospheric CO2 also produce nutritious food and perform many ecosystem services like water filtration, biodeposition, denitrification, reef building, enhanced biodiversity, shoreline stabilisation and wave management. We estimate that a mussel farm sequesters three times as much carbon as terrestrial ecosystems retain. Blue carbon farming does not need irrigation or fertiliser, nor conflict with the use of scarce agricultural land. Blue carbon farming can be combined with restoration and conservation of overfished fisheries and usually involves so little intervention that there is no inevitable conflict with other activities. We calculate that this paradigm shift (from ‘shellfish as food’ to ‘shellfish for carbon sequestration’) makes bivalve mollusc farming and microalgal farming enterprises, viable, profitable, and sustainable, alternatives to all CCUS industrial technologies and terrestrial biotechnologies in use today.

The copper content in the organs and tissues of Mytilus galloprovincialis Lamarck, 1819 and the flow of its sedimentary deposition into bottom sediments in the farms of the Black Sea aquaculture

The role of mussels in formation of water chemical composition is determined by the peculiarities of sorption and trophodynamic processes. Copper is a vital element, but of ten metals the toxic effect of which was tested for the survival of mussel and oyster embryos, copper is following mercury. Studying the regularities of copper content change during mussel ontogeny allows to determine both sanitary and hygienic risks of mussel product use during the mollusks cultivation in mariculture and the biogeochemical role in the formation of the chemical composition of the marine water near mussel farms. The purpose of this work is to determine the copper content in the organs and tissues of the mussels during seasonal course of mollusks ontogenesis, to analyze the degree of copper assimilation along the food path of mineral nutrition using the mathematical model and empirical data and to assess the influence of marine farms on the copper exchange processes in the coastal ecosystem. The mollusks were collected from the mussel farm located in the external roadstead of Sevastopol. Studying the copper content in the environment – mussel – biodeposition system, a method of atomic absorption spectroscopy with electrothermal atomization was used. A general model illustrating the process of copper exchange between the mussels and the water environment is presented. Equations for determining the degree of assimilation of metal from food (q) and the limiting coefficient of food accumulation of metal (Кп) are proposed based on the results of measurements of its concentrations in the mussels’ diet, soft tissue and their biodeposition without using radioactive trace elements. The values of the copper removal by the mussel farm were calculated. The role of cultivated mollusks in the heavy metals precipitation was shown.