
Flower E. MsuyaZanzibar Seaweed Cluster Initiative Zanzibar, Tanzania
Flower E. Msuya
PhD
Research in seaweed aquaculture to cope with climate change
About
101
Publications
140,730
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2,398
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
I am working on a project on impact of seaweed value addition in Tanzania, aiming at showing how the effort started by the Zanzibar Seaweed Cluster Initiative (ZaSCI) have reached so far. The project is in collaboration with the Schmidt Marine Technology Partners.
Education
September 1999 - February 2004
Publications
Publications (101)
22 This study aimed at identifying the presence of harmful cyanobacteria species Moorea 23 producens, detecting potential harmful algae toxins and their distribution in three seasons: 24 December to February (hot dry season), March to May (rain season), and June to November 25 (cool dry season) of 2016. The samples were collected in five study site...
The lack of top‐down control on Tripneustes gratilla, a sea urchin commonly known to graze on seagrass, and the bottom‐up control of its feeding preference, led to the overgrazing of seagrass meadows of the species Thalassodendron ciliatum in Changuu Island (Zanzibar Archipelago). The impact of overgrazing on seagrasses was assessed by mapping the...
Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) is an ecosystem-based method to produce food from different elements of the food web. IMTA processes involve recycling nutrients such as feces, waste feed, or soluble inorganic forms. Production activities under IMTA system in Tanzania face a number of challenges, yet the potential for production is enorm...
CITATION: Cottier-Cook E.J., Cabarubias J.P., Brakel J., Brodie J., Buschmann A.H., Campbell I., Critchley A.T., Hewitt C.L., Huang J., Hurtado A.Q., Kambey C.S.B., Lim P.E., Liu T., Mateo J.P., Msuya F.E., Qi Z., Shaxson L., Stentiford G.D., Bondad-Reantaso M.G. 2022. A new Progressive Management Pathway for improving seaweed biosecurity. Nature C...
Seaweed aquaculture biosecurity measures were implemented at the farm level to assess their effectiveness on the occurrence of diseases and epiphytes, correlation of environmental parameters to disease occurrence, and effect on the growth rate and carrageenan properties on the commercially important red seaweeds Kappaphycus alvarezii and Eucheuma d...
Seaweed-based mariculture is an important source of livelihoods for impoverished coastal communities in Tanzania. However, the impacts of climate change across East Africa are putting a strain on the growth of the seaweed industry. Smallholder farmers are already mobilizing strategies to cope with challenges such as disease outbreaks, but they are...
The seaweed industry makes a significant contribution to
Tanzania’s economy, but this has been severely impacted
due to climate-induced pest and disease outbreaks in the
recent years. Seaweed farming is a crucial livelihood option for coastal
communities, which may be marginalised or hindered in
their income generating options, particularly th...
Seaweeds form the second largest global aquaculture product in volume, and despite rapid growth of the sector over the last 25 years, production and quality in top producing regions is becoming increasingly limited due to disease and pest outbreaks, the spread of non-native cultivars and the degradation of genetic health due to inbreeding. Most not...
Global demand for seaweed and its products has increased exponentially over the last 25 years. Equally, the continent of Africa and its offshore islands have considerable potential for seaweed production to contribute to world demand. Compared with China and the rest of Asia, Africa lags behind in seaweed production and utilisation. However, for re...
Highlights 1. This policy brief highlights key challenges that must be addressed for the long-term sustainability of the global seaweed industry, ensuring its role in providing nature-based solutions within the sustainable ocean economy agenda and in contributing to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). 2. Seaweed...
Cottier-Cook, E.J., Nagabhatla, N., Asri, A., Beveridge, M., Bianchi, P., Bolton, J., Bondad-Reantaso, M.G., Brodie, J., Buschmann, A., Cabarubias, J., Campbell, I., Chopin, T., Critchley, A., De Lombaerde, P., Doumeizel, V., Gachon, C.M.M., Hayashi, L., Hewitt, C.L., Huang, J., Hurtado, A.Q., Kambey, C., Kim, G.H., Le Masson, V., Lim, P.E., Liu, T...
A decline in seaweed production in Tanzania is attributed to a rising prevalence of pathogens that have subsequently reduced the quantity and commercial value of the crop. This constraint has led to severe socio-economic implications for the seaweed industry, threatening the livelihoods of tens of thousands of farmers. Despite the growing demands f...
Societal Impact Statement
Seaweed cultivation is the fastest‐growing aquaculture sector, with a demonstrable potential to drive development in some of the poorest coastal populations worldwide. However, sustainable exploitation, fair access and equitable benefits from marine genetic resources, such as seaweeds have yet to be fully realised. Patchy...
Farming of Eucheuma denticulatum is a major activity in Zanzibar affecting seagrass ecosystems primarily through shading and trampling. The aim of this study was to test the impacts of shading and trampling during seaweed farming on seagrass meadows composed by Halophila stipulacea and Thalassia hemprichii and their associated benthic macroalgae. A...
Pest and disease outbreaks have significant impacts on the livelihoods of seaweed farmers each year, particularly in low- to middle-income countries around the world. Commercial seaweed farming of the red carrageenophytes, Eucheuma denticulatum, Kappaphycus alvarezii and Kappaphycus striatus, in Tanzania was established in 1989. The impacts of pest...
Each year a significant proportion of global food production is lost to pests and diseases, with concerted efforts by government and industry focussed on application of effective biosecurity policies which attempt to minimise their emergence and spread. In aquaculture the volume of seaweeds produced is second only to farmed fish and red algal carra...
Tanzania is endowed with a rich biodiversity of seaweed species that grow naturally in its oligotrophic waters of the Western Indian Ocean. Most of these species are unexploited. Only two red seaweeds Eucheuma and Kappaphycus have been studied for commercial farming and the industrial production is based on these species. Another genus of red seawe...
This study focused on identifying the rotenoids from the Tephrosia vogelli plant (fish-poison-bean), investigating the toxic potency of a crude T. vogelii extract and individual rotenoids (tephrosin, deguelin and rotenone) in vitro and in vivo and assessing the mode of action. A trout (Onychorynhis mykiss) gill epithelial cell line (RTgill-W1) was...
In Zanzibar, seaweed farming is a small-scale but important livelihood activity carried out mainly by women. Women producers are, however, confronted with many challenges: inadequate technology, climatic variations, low yields, economic inefficiencies and social and cultural constraints. Tubular nets – an innovation piloted in the context of the Se...
Seaweeds have been used as a food for centuries in Asia and are increasingly exploited as a source for dietary supplements, animal feed, chemicals, and biofuels. In recent years, there has been an increase in the prevalence of diseases and pests in these aquaculture crops, with a subsequent reduction in their quantity and commercial value. In this...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate. The cultivation of marine and freshwater species has undergone a dramatic global expansion since the 1960s (5.8 – 6.9% yr-1), exceeding the annual growth rates of many other important commercial agricultural products, such as livestock (1.9% yr-1) and cereals (2...
Seaweed farming using pegs and ropes was introduced in Zanzibar 30 years ago and became an important livelihood source for the women of the island. Since then, climatic variations, low productivity and prices, inappropriate technology and difficult work conditions have increasingly challenged their economic and social benefits from the activity. To...
The small-fisheries social-ecological system in the western Indian Ocean (WIO) represents a typical social-ecological trap setting where very poor natural resources dependent coastal communities face local and global threats and engage in unsustainable practices of exploiting limited resources. Community-based aquaculture (CBA) has been implemented...
Managing integrated social-ecological systems to reduce risks to human and environmental wellbeing remains challenging in light of the rate and extent of undesirable changes that are occurring. Developing frameworks that are sufficiently integrative to guide research to deliver the necessary insights into all key system aspects is an important outs...
Kappaphycus and Eucheuma species have been successfully cultivated in Southeast Asia since the early 1970s. The increasing global demand for carrageenan in processed foods and thereby the need for industrial-scales of biomass to be provided to feed an extraction industry, exceeded wild stock availability and productivity and commercial demands coul...
In most developing countries, the majority of people involved with seaweed farming are women. Their immense contribution to the industry has been widely demonstrated and evaluated in successful examples/case studies. These ‘seaweed women’ have made significant advances in the sustainability of seaweed farming for more than four decades and their de...
Mangroves provide multiple benefits, from carbon storage and shoreline protection to food and energy for natural resource-dependent coastal communities. However, they are coming under increasing pressure from climate change, coastal development, and aquaculture. There is increasing need to better understand the changes mangroves face and whether th...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
Global aquaculture production continues to increase, whilst capture fisheries stagnate (FAO et al. 2014). Many wild fisheries have been overexploited and cultivation, if managed sustainably, is a viable alternative. The seaweed industry is undergoing a rapid global expansion and currently accounts for ~27% of the total global aquaculture production...
A rising number of valuable uses being found for seaweed -- from food and fertilizer to pharmaceuticals and industrial gels -- is driving the rapid growth of an industry that could easily and needlessly drop into some of the same pitfalls previously experienced in both agriculture and fish farming. Drawing on the expertise of 21 institutions worldw...
Aquaculture in the Zanzibar Islands of Tanzania (Fig. 1) takes place mainly in the marine environment. The main types of farmed organisms are seaweed (Eucheuma denticulatum, Kappaphycus striatum, and Kappaphycus alvarezii), marine finfish (milkfish Chanos chanos and mullet Mugil cephalus), bivalve shellfish (pearl oyster Pinctada martensii, P. marg...
Deposit-feeding sea cucumbers play a key role in marine ecosystems through biotur- bation, burrowing and feeding on organic matter in marine sediments. Many deposit-feeding holothurians have therefore been recommended for integrated multitrophic aquaculture systems (IMTA). We set up an integrated mariculture system of sea cucumber Holothuria scabra...
Algae are a diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that can easily grow in marine, fresh-, and wastewater environments. About 90% of marine plants are algae that efficiently convert carbon dioxide into sugars and oxygen, hence being responsible for more than 50% of the global carbon fixation and oxygen production. There are more than 200,000 dif...
The farming of the red seaweed Kappaphycus alvarezii and related species as raw material for the hydrocolloid carrageenan rapidly spread from the Philippines in the late 1960s to Indonesia, Tanzania, and other tropical countries around the world. Although numerous studies have documented positive socioeconomic impacts for seaweed farming, factors s...
Commercially valuable sea cucumbers are potential co-culture species in tropical lagoon environments, where they may be integrated into established aquaculture areas used for seaweed farming. In the current study, wild-caught juvenile sea cucumbers, Holothuria scabra, and red seaweed Kappaphycus striatum were co-cultured on Zanzibar, United Republi...
Tanzania, like many other countries where eucheumatoid seaweeds are farmed, is experiencing die-off of Kappaphycus alvarezii. Farming is failing in many cultivation sites in shallow intertidal areas where it used to grow well. Production has fallen dramatically, and in some areas, hardly any seaweed is produced any longer. This study was carried ou...
Tanzania, like many other countries where
eucheumatoid seaweeds are farmed, is experiencing die-off
of Kappaphycus alvarezii. Farming is failing in many cultivation
sites in shallow intertidal areas where it used to grow well.
Production has fallen dramatically, and in some areas, hardly
any seaweed is produced any longer. This study was carried
ou...
One of the three most important industries bringing foreign income to Zanzibar Islands of Tanzania is seaweed farming. The industry is the third most important employing about 20,000 farmers with a production of 15,087 tonnes dry seaweed per year (2012). There has been a recent incidence of algal blooms that have affected the farms and the farmers...
Since commercial seaweed cultivation in Tanzania started in 1989, only limited research has been done on impact of stocking density and nutrients, which are factors that may limit seaweed growth. In this study, Eucheuma denticulatum and Kappaphycus alvarezii were cultivated at low (50 g cuttings of seaweed (half of what farmers use) in 4m long nylo...
Seaweed farming in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) Region is carried out in a number of countries, most of them farming Eucheuma denticulatum, Kappaphycus alvarezii and Kappaphycus striatum. These species are farmed mostly in Tanzania with limited production in Madagascar, Mozambique and Kenya; current production (2012) stands at 15,966 t (dry weigh...
Seaweed mariculture has been promoted as a development project in tropical countries and Zanzibar, Tanza-nia, is commonly presented as a successful story. However, the results of the present research provide a nu-anced picture of the activity identifying serious health problems among farmers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with female se...
Kappaphycus alvarezii and Eucheuma denticulatum were cultivated under two treatments:
with & without additional nutrients in Uroa, Zanzibar. The seaweeds were cultivated for 8
weeks (total of 15 weeks) in contrast to the 4-6 weeks normally used by farmers. Water
column nutrients were 8-17µM total ammonia nitrogen & 2-38 µM soluble reactive
phosphat...
The effects of seagrass cover and nutrients on seaweed cultivation were
examined in tidal pools in Tanzania. The seaweeds Eucheuma denticulatum and
Kappaphycus alvarezii were cultivated from August 2006 - August 2007 in pools
with and without seagrasses, and with and without added nutrients. Growth rates of
fertilised E. denticulatum were significa...
Seaweed mariculture has been promoted as a development project in tropical countries and Zanzibar, Tanzania, is commonly presented as a successful story. However, the results of the present research provide a nuanced picture of the activity identifying serious health problems among farmers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with female seaw...