Marine integrated pest management (MIPM) approach for sustainable seagriculture

Seaweed farming, or seagriculture, is expected to provide sustainable biomass enabling the development of marine bioeconomy through the blue growth. Epiphytism is a common phenomenon in seaweed farming that impacts the biomass yield. Epiphytes may be other non-wanted algal species, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Epiphytes can attract grazers such as crabs, lobsters, shrimp, crayfish, fish, and turtles, which have both positive (enriched biodiversity throughout the food chain, ecosystem services, etc.) and negative (yield loss, etc.) impacts on seaweed farming. A critical challenge for the future seagriculture is how to address the pest problem. Although well developed for terrestrial agriculture, pest management frameworks for seaweed farming have yet to be set up. In this regard, we propose a framework for marine integrated pest management in seaweed farming. Based on several cases-studied: indoor and offshore seaweed farming in Israel and traditional seaweed farming in India, pest prevention, pest control, pest mitigation strategies and their implementations are discussed.