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Some might be put off by its texture, aroma, or murky origins, but the fact of the matter is seaweed is one of the oldest human foods on earth. And prepared the right way, it can be absolutely delicious. Long a staple in Asian cuisines, seaweed has emerged on the global market as one of our new superfoods, a natural product that is highly sustainable and extraordinarily nutritious. Illuminating seaweed’s many benefits through a fascinating history of its culinary past, Kaori O’Connor tells a unique story that stretches along coastlines the world over.
           
O’Connor introduces readers to some of the 10,000 kinds of seaweed that grow on our planet, demonstrating how seaweed is both one of the world’s last great renewable resources and a culinary treasure ready for discovery. Many of us think of seaweed as a forage food for the poor, but various kinds were often highly prized in ancient times as a delicacy reserved for kings and princes. And they ought to be prized: there are seaweeds that are twice as nutritious as kale and taste just like bacon—superfood, indeed. Offering recipes that range from the traditional to the contemporary—taking us from Asia to Europe to the Americas—O’Connor shows that sushi is just the beginning of the possibilities for this unique plant.

With a view to finding out the feasibility of Lakshadweep lagoons for cultivation of Gracilaria edulis in Minicoy experimental culture has been undetaken at four sites. Very encouraging results indicating high potential of about 8.1 fold increase for this species in the lagoon evironments of Minicoy was obtained. Seasonal variations in the growth of the culture seaweed is high-lighted in this account indicating favourable seasons and potential sites.

Minicoy lagoon harbours extensive beds of Thalassia hemprichii in association with Syringodium isoetifolium, Halophila ovalis and Halodule uninervis. The total area occupied by seagrass flat ranges from 2.0 to 2.2 sq.km. Net primary production (NPP) of seagrass species varied from 5.0 gC/m³/day (0.5 gC/kg (wet wt.)/day for Syringodium to 10 gC/m³/day (1.0 gC/kg (wet wt.)/day for Halodule. It was estimated that an impairement up to 50 % on the NPP of Thalassia plants was caused by the prolonged exposure of the beds to bright sunshine in the intertidal areas during ebb stage when compared to those Thalassia plants growing in the unexposed habitats. Wet biomass, density of seagrass species and their NPP potential on the community metabolism of the lagoon are discussed.

Sea-urchin feeding fronts are a striking example of spatial pattern formation in an ecological system. If it is assumed that urchins are asocial, and that they move randomly, then the formation of these dense fronts is an apparent paradox. The key lies in observations that urchins move further in areas where their algal food is less plentiful. This naturally leads to the accumulation of urchins in areas with abundant algae. If urchin movement is represented as a random walk, with a step size that depends on algal concentration, then their movement may be described by a Fokker–Planck diffusion equation. For certain combinations of algal growth and urchin grazing, traveling wave solutions are obtained. Two-dimensional simulations of urchin algal dynamics show that an initially uniformly distributed urchin population, grazing on an alga with a smoothly varying density, may form a propagating front separating two sharply delineated regions. On one side of the front algal density is uniformly low, and on the other side of the front algal density is uniformly high. Bounds on when stable fronts will form are obtained in terms of urchin density and grazing, and algal growth.