Seaweeds as natural resource for agar - Agar extraction in India- A review Yadav Sudhir Kumar1,*, Yohannan Aron Santhosh Kumar2, Palanisamy Mookkan3 1Botanical Survey of India, CGO Complex, Sector 1, Salt Lake City, Kolkata, India 2Botanical Survey of India, Southern Regional Centre, TNAU campus, Coimbatore, India 3Botanical Survey of India, Central National Herbarium, Botanic Garden, Howrah, India *Corresponding author: skyadavbsic@gmail.com
Online Published on 18 October, 2023. Abstract Seaweeds are the marine macro algae and one of the most potential marine living resources in the World. It plays an important role in the sustainability of the marine ecosystems and carbon sequestration. Economically, seaweeds have high potentiality in the blue economy of the country. Among the various uses, seaweeds are the natural source of phycocolloids, which is a gelatinous substrate with high commercial potential. Agar-agar is one of the most important phycocolloids, and widely used in industries and biochemical laboratories. The commonly used red seaweeds (Rhodophyceae) as natural sources of agar-agar are the species of Gracilaria, Gelidium, Gelidiella. In India, these three genera are represented by 53 taxa, of which, about 14 taxa, consisting of ten taxa of Gracilaria, two taxa of Gelidium and two taxa of Gelidiella are recognised with agar-agar potentiality. The paper briefly highlights the taxonomic account and economic potentiality of these seaweeds as source of agar-agar in the Indian perspectives. Top Keywords Agar-agar, Phycocolloids, Gracilaria, Gelidium, Gelidiella, Cultivation, Seaweeds. Top |