Not Your Average SOS: Research Methods to Respond to and Prevent Algae Crop Collapse

Algae/Other Aquatic Organisms/Seaweed, California, Energy, Farming/Growing, Federal Agency/Executive Branch, Feedstock, Feedstocks, Government Resources, Infrastructure, New Mexico, R & D Focus, Resources, Sustainability

April 1, 2022

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by Daniel B. Fishman and Anne Otwell (U.S. Department of Energy) National laboratories discover the telltale signs of algae distress to target effective treatments and mitigate crop collapse. — Algae are an exciting renewable feedstock for the future of sustainable fuels and products. One particularly interesting application, which the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) is exploring, shows the potential to turn algae into jet fuel precursors. Their fast growth rates, dense cultures, and genetic diversity means they possess an incredible number of unique properties that can be manipulated in a myriad of ways.

Yet lurking in or around every algae pond are pests—grazers and predators that have the potential to devastate the algae crop. Algae ponds have the potential to “crash” or be overtaken quickly because of these pests, turning from a healthy, vibrant green to sickly brown and dead in a matter of hours to days. This rapid deterioration poses significant challenges for the scale-up of algae production for the future.

a photo of two algae ponds side by side. One green, one orange.

During a pond crash, algae rapidly turns from green and healthy to brown and sickly. Pictured here are example ponds (healthy and sickly) from the Algae Raceway Testbed at Sandia National Laboratories. Photo courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories

However, what if there was technology to monitor and predict these pond crashes before they happen, giving pond operators time to deploy the right countermeasures? Researchers at the Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (SNL and LLNL) are doing just that.

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In a recent study in the journal Metabolites, the team describes how they tested whether their monitoring tool could distinguish between different types of algae stresses. Biotic stress occurs because of damage done by an organism while abiotic stress is caused by non-living impacts on a specific environment.

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Their discovery was promising and novel—algae being eaten by grazers put out different chemical signals than the algae that were frozen and thawed. Interestingly, there were also some chemical signals produced during both types of stress, suggesting that algae produce general stress signals alongside signals specific to a particular stressor. READ MORE

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