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Extensive spread of farmed seaweeds causes a shift from native to non-native haplotypes in natural seaweed beds

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Abstract

Seaweed farming has been the cause of introductions of non-indigenous seaweed species and genotypes throughout the world. In Zanzibar, Tanzania, foreign genotypes of Eucheuma denticulatum were introduced for farming purposes in 1989, and in recent years a spread of non-indigenous haplotypes has been reported. The current study aimed to investigate the presence and extent of introduced and native haplotypes of E. denticulatum as well as their relative frequencies, to obtain the severity of the spread of cultivated seaweed and the current state of the native populations. The results show that all investigated sites are dominated by the introduced South-east Asian haplotypes, even where seaweed farming has never occurred. As the frequencies of East African haplotypes are remarkably low, this shows a shift from native to introduced E. denticulatum. This shift may, at least in part, be caused by earlier overharvest of natural seaweed populations, and indicates a cryptic invasion of the introduced haplotypes at the potential cost of the recovery of the native haplotype populations.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Prof. Mats Grahn and Dr. Giuseppe Zuccarello for helping with the genetic analyses. The personnel at the Institute of Marine Sciences at Zanzibar are thanked for their help, especially Dr. Mtolera. Maria Eggertsen and Lisa Högström are thanked for their help during field work. The manuscript was improved by helpful comments from three anonymous reviewers. In situ research was conducted under permits issued by the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar 20/10/2011 and 28/08/2012. The study was financed by Sida (SWE2010-052) and The Swedish Research Council (VR-348-2013-6146).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    S. A. Tano, C. Halling & S. A. Wikström

  2. School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies, Södertörn University, 141 41, Huddinge, Sweden

    E. Lind

  3. Department of Botany, University of Dar es Salaam, Box 35060, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

    A. Buriyo

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  1. S. A. Tano
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Tano, S.A., Halling, C., Lind, E. et al. Extensive spread of farmed seaweeds causes a shift from native to non-native haplotypes in natural seaweed beds. Mar Biol 162, 1983–1992 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-015-2724-7

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