Seaweed uses: the outlook for mariculture

The decade of the 1970s heralded a major research effort into mariculture of economically important red and brown seaweeds. Limited and declining natural populations, lack of synthetic substitutes for the phycocolloids, and their upwardly spiralling costs have emphasized the need for more research in this area. Algal mariculture is now technically and scientifically feasible, but the economic realities are still undetermined. This article examines what is known about seaweed mariculture and discusses where future research efforts must go.