Division of Environmental Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, 37673, Republic of Korea.
Department of Life Science and Biotechnology, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, 31538, Republic of Korea.
Chemosphere. 2021 Jan;263:128276. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.128276. Epub 2020 Sep 8.
Intense seaweed grazing by sea urchins has destroyed kelp forests and accelerated the transformation of these forests into barren areas known as urchin barrens. Once the sea urchins occupy the barren ground, it becomes more challenging to restore the kelp forests. Although phlorotannin, a primary herbivore defense chemical secreted by kelp, has been reported to discourage feeding activities of marine herbivores but the direct application of naturally extracted phlorotannin does not effectively repel sea urchins. In this study, we applied a simple and green Tannin-Fe (TA-Fe) coating on substrates as a sea urchin repellent using a cheap, ecofriendly tannin (TA) obtained from biomass as an alternative to phlorotannin. In a model aquarium experiment, most of the sea urchins (Anthocidaris crassispina) in the tank evaded the TA-Fe-coated substrates. In field tests with 300 sea urchins, the majority of sea urchins could not crawl over the TA-Fe-coated rope for more than 2 h in contrast to the control group. Hence, the safety, cost-effectiveness, and scalability of the TA-Fe coating make it a practical candidate to protect the kelp ecosystem from sea urchins.
强烈的海藻摄食使海胆破坏了巨藻林，并加速了这些森林向被称为海胆荒地的贫瘠地区的转变。一旦海胆占据了贫瘠的土地，恢复巨藻林就变得更加困难。虽然已报道说，巨藻分泌的主要草食动物防御化学物质——岩藻黄质会抑制海洋草食动物的摄食活动，但天然提取的岩藻黄质的直接应用并不能有效地驱赶海胆。在这项研究中，我们使用一种廉价、环保的单宁（TA）作为替代物，从生物质中提取单宁-铁（TA-Fe）涂层，并将其应用于基质上作为一种海胆驱避剂，以简单环保的方式开发这种驱避剂。在模型水族馆实验中，大多数（Anthocidaris crassispina）海胆避开了涂有 TA-Fe 的基质。在 300 只海胆的野外试验中，与对照组相比，大多数海胆在涂有 TA-Fe 的绳索上超过 2 小时无法爬行。因此，TA-Fe 涂层的安全性、成本效益和可扩展性使其成为保护巨藻生态系统免受海胆侵害的一种实用候选物。
