Talk:Seaweed

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Please have someone edit this page. Seaweed contains flouride with is very dangerous and I just had some health problems from eating too much seaweed.

~People should not eat too much or they can get sick. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.149.47.249 (talk) 07:18, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Algal groups

Seaweeds are to be found among all the major algal groups: the blue-green, red, green, and brown algae.

This simply isn't true. First, there are no seaweeds among the blue-green algae, which are now often not even considered algae. Second, there are several other major groups of algae, such as the diatoms and dinoflagellates, which do not include any seaweeds. -- Josh

I realize that the dividing line between large filamentous forms and microthallic algae as to the term seaweeds in common parlance is fuzzy -- However, we do have three species regarded as "seaweed" in Hawaiian waters that are in the (old) group of blue-green algae (i.e., cyanophytes), and there are terrestrial and freshwater examples (not "seaweeds" of course). Not sure about your second point? I did not list groups that do not have any seaweeds in them. Marshman

I guess you are saying these others ARE "major groups" -- I'd agree with that point, certainly. I'll reword the text. Marshman

That is indeed what I meant. Checking the blue-green algae bit, it seems you're right, so I've added them back to the article (as cyanobacteria, which is a more common name nowadays). Feel free to adjust as you see fit, of course.

I was going to suggest that if phycologists are purists about this "common parlance" name, we could develop a paragraph about it. Maybe if we get further disagreements. Thanks for input. Marshman

I just reworded the text to make it clearer that seaweeds are subgroups of algae. Fosnez 11:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It would be helpful to cross-link or combine this page with "Kelp," as the two terms are used interchangably despite any technical differences. --Kris Schnee 21:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

A reference would be useful as kelps are a type of seaweed by most vernacular definitions. Combining them is not approrpiate, though, as not all seaweeds are kelp. In areas where people live near kepl beds that are harvested, such as coastal California, the two terms are not used interchangably. Sloppy usage doesn't require that information sources conform to it at all times. It would be like merging maples into trees.

Good points, Marshman. 'Seaweed' is used in all sorts of ways. The article needs a bit of work, it lists photosynthetic bacteria in the beginning, then limits seaweeds to protists, which Wikipedia defines as eukaryotes. Probably needs a good outline, then a rewrite. KP Botany 22:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Seaweed/algae

The two sites "Seaweeds" foolish is and "Algae" rather overlap - should they be amalgamated ? Osborne 08:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not confident in the use of Wikipedia. But I think this article should be united with Algae. ?or rerouted. Any-way no more to be added to this site and all transferred to "Algae". What do you think?? {helpme} Osborne 14:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"Seaweed" is a colloquial term with multiple usages. It can be used, for example, to mean the macro-algae, in which case it would not be synonymous with algae. Your knowledge about algae and willingness to tend to details will make up for any lack of experience you have in actually using Wikipedia, so don't worry. Try to use edit summaries, though, to tell people what you did, and to let folks know when you have a question. KP Botany 03:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

As someone with an interest in the very many freshwater Algae which could never be described as seaweed, I would counsel against any merge with Algae. 87.113.74.78 22:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah but "Seaweed" should/should be united UNDER Algae. Othertwuse there will be too much duplication - refs etc. I don't intend to add any more to "Seaweed".Osborne 12:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Kim vs. Nori

I gather that Kim is a Korean word for what is known in Japan as Nori. In English, this food seems to overwhelmingly be called nori. For example, a search for kim on onelook does not come up with this meaning, but nori gives for example Merriam-Webster. Even if we do call it kim, we shouldn't link to a disambiguation page. Kingdon 20:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it's spelled gim. It's the Korean name for nori and it's the same thing. Why would we use "gim" to refer to it? It's a Korean word and people already use the word "nori" to refer to this, or they use seaweed or laver. - M0rphzone (talk) 19:26, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

food trace elements

Doesn't seaweed contain traces of almost every element? Puddytang 13:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Probably depends where it grows ... I'd not be confident eating seaweed from anywhere near Fukushima for a few years for example. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 14:58, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Seems highly unlikely. Without getting into the truly rare elements and those that are highly toxic to most forms of life, where would, say, helium come from? I'd be interested in any source that makes this claim. - SummerPhD (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. A quick web search confirms that various sites selling seaweed as "supplements" claim it (or the dubious "sea vegetables") contains all of the trace elements necessary in the human diet in amounts far greater than those old fashioned "land vegetables". Well, yeah. 1 gram of dried seaweed would contain a whole hell of a lot more of most minerals than 1 gram of any land vegetable because the land vegetables are mostly water (as was the seaweed before you dried it. Duh.)

As for "almost every element", journal sources that I could find only analyzed those of dietary import. I has all of those, to one degree or another: The ones you want (iron (though non-heme), magnesium, iodine, etc.) and a bunch you don't want (arsenic, lead, radioisotopes of iodine, radioisotopes of lead, radioisotopes of iron, etc.). As for Fukushima the radioactive iodine, lead, iron, etc. predate the disaster from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the mid-20th century. A recent study found that blue fin tuna (which should pick up much of the radioactive muck in the Pacific) are about 5% above normal background radiation (as of 2013). This makes them far LESS radioactive than bananas (which are naturally high in potassium and, as a result, naturally high in radioisotopes of potassium). - SummerPhD (talk) 16:35, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Water quality monitoring

No mention of water quality monitoring using seaweeds. Now becoming common place in Europe!

Seaweed's Nutritional Value

Has anyone ever categorised the different nutritional values of the various species (may not be correct technical term) of seaweed that are out there?

What is the nutritional value of the various different types of seaweed that are in existence?

I'll probably research this myself and have a go at adding it in future, but it certainly is related to seaweed's usage as a food.

ConcernedScientist 20:01, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Genetically Modified Seaweed

Is it feasible to alter the types of chemicals that seaweed produces in order to enhance its nutritional value? This would probably meet opposition from environmental campaigners, but it would probably be useful to someone for something (it could ensure that seaweed is capable of producing at least some of those food compositions which are usually found likeable in land-grown foods).

Certainly, it should be possible to GM seaweed so that it becomes less susceptible to man-made pollution (that is, the up-take from man-made pollution could be decreased significantly via some simple modifications).

ConcernedScientist 20:01, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• The opposite could/can also be done. Increasing the absorption rates of specific pollutants in order to clean them up from a contaminated zone. Algae#Pollution_control Dogsgomoo 23:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Seaweed Usage within Fish Farming

Can seaweed be used for the purposes of fish farming? I have viewed Fish farming in order to gain a better idea concerning possible applications of seaweed to that arena (assuming that there are fish that can eat seaweed or some processed derivative of seaweed/'marine algae'/kelp).

Quite a lot of the fish we like to eat are carnivores, so not so much. However the marine ecology lot do tend to suggest that having lots of seaweed around makes the overall fish population do better - likely the ones we eat eat things that eat the seaweed or something. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 14:57, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Bio-Fuel Applications of Seaweed

Yep, somebody must have done some work at some point in an attempt to extract ethanol from seaweed for the purposes of fueling cars. The primary advantage with doing this is that it frees up agricultural land (that would otherwise be idiotically allocated to bio-fuels despite hunger and food scarcity issues) for conventional food production.

Disadvantages/Problems Induced by Seaweed

Surely Seaweed can be evil? They ca at least be slimey?

ConcernedScientist 20:01, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Applications within Industrial Dyes?

I know that some species of marine snail can provide dyes - but what about seaweeds?

Edible

Seaweed is known as "edible" snacks in other countries but maybe not in the US. For example, Koreans think of it as edible, salty thin stuff. The Japanese think of it a sushi and the other countries that are not Asian think of it as the disgusting blob of green mucky wet stuff found on the beach... --98.64.110.201 (talk) 15:51, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

--72.67.82.196 (talk) 17:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

IIRC I saw a documentary a few years back about seaweed harvesting in Maine (actually may have been about seafood in general in and around Maine) so it is eaten in the US (although probably not so much in, say, Nebraska). Also, off the top of my head, the British (although mainly Scots and Welsh), French, Irish, Scandinavians (including Icelanders) and some varieties of Spanish eat the stuff so it's not just the Asians. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 15:06, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was speedy close: do not move Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:06, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
Seaweed → Seawater algae — A more suitable primary term for this article is Seawater algae —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.79.192 (talk) 15:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAMES. In addition, there are marine algae that are not multicellular and not benthic and thus are not seaweeds. Deor (talk) 22:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Seaweed" is a much more likely search term than "seawater algae". Jafeluv (talk) 08:13, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
• Per Jafeluv and Deor, I oppose. Knepflerle (talk) 09:30, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Toxicity

This article has no mention of toxicity e.g. heavy metals in the seas of Japan. Bluegreen algae is also associated with anatoxin. Zanze123 (talk) 20:49, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

multicellular

Caulerpa species are an example of a single cellular seaweed. Should this exception be noted? --NoahSpurrier (talk) 00:49, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thatching houses

The image of a house on Læsø, Denmark, shows a house that is thatched with eelgrass (Zostera marina), which is a marine flowering plant, but not a seaweed. (Another image of an eelgrass-thatched house can be seen at this link (figure 2.1 on page 9).) I have removed the image from the article. --Episcophagus (talk) 17:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Seaweed collecting

Reading an article in a local newspaper I found out that Seaweed collecting (like stamp collecting, but smellier!) was a bit of craze in Victorian times. I wrote a page about it, and it would be nice if it could be incorporated somewhere here. As an aside I also stumbled across the fact a lot of places have legislation in place over the mass collection of seaweed (Ireland, for instance, has a certain amount you can take each day), which might have a place here? -LÒÓkingYourBest^(Talk|Edits) 02:43, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Microscopic of macroscopic in lead first sentence?

I don't have access to the offline source used in the lead first sentence, but shouldn't the word "microscopic" be "macroscopic"? FloraWilde (talk) 15:01, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Doubtful taxobox

"Seaweeds" aren't a taxonomic group of any kind, as defined in the article. The taxobox lists "groups included", but only marine organisms in these groups are called "seaweeds". Groups said to be included that don't belong are:

• Charophyta – all (or mostly) freshwater
• Chlorokybophyceae – terrestrial
• Chlorophyta – both marine and freshwater
• Cyanobacteria – both marine and freshwater

In my view the whole taxobox needs to be removed. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:24, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

A simple infobox is still useful. It certainly doesn't need the excluded section. I've made a simlified version with the header changed to make clear the groups contain some seaweeds rather than suggesting the groups are seaweeds.   Jts1882 | talk  10:30, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the current box is fine. I've noticed a number of weird cases while going through the pages using {{paraphyletic group}}, but this article was perhaps stretching it a little. --Nessie (talk) 15:10, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, as set out now, I agree that it's much better. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:17, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Cyanobacteria is not seaweed

I removed from the article a rather eccentric and uncited statement which asserted, "Some bluegreen algae (Cyanobacteria) are sometimes considered to be seaweed." Someone then reverted this and added a reference to the churnalism website ScienceDaily. Sure enough a reporter at this website, summarising the findings of some research paper, was referring to marine cyanobacterium as being seaweed. But the research paper at issue did not refer to seaweed at all. Other churnalism websites picked the confusion up as news, and passed the confusion along the line.

Cyanobacteria can form blooms or mats which look like algal blooms or mats, but it is not algae, it is bacteria. Historically cyanobacteria was erroneously thought to be algae, and were even named "blue-green algae". But the matter has long been rectified with the realisation that cyanobacteria is not even in the same kingdom as algae. Further, cyanobacteria are very much microscopic unicellular organisms, and nothing like macroscopic multicellular seaweed.

I cannot find a single peer reviewed science paper which refers to cyanobacteria as seaweed. Nor can I find a single textbook that does this. I think it is not a good idea for Wikipedia to reinforce a confusion like this. Accordingly, I have again removed the statement. Since, as the old saw has it, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", this statement should not be reinstated unless it is verified by solid sources. – Epipelagic (talk) 08:25, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. The presence of cyanobacteria bothered me when I simplified the taxobox, but as there was reference I left it in. A broad definition of seaweed includes aggregates of unicellular algae and a broad definition of algae includes cyanobacterium, so I thought it just about possible. But since the reference uses no sources to make the seaweed claim I agree it should be removed. The single reference it cites is about chemicals extracted from the cynaobacterium and makes no statement on it being a seaweed.   Jts1882 | talk  12:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I'm "Someone." First let's make sure we know that seaweed is not the same as algae. They are two different concepts with two different articles. Algae is a clade, and seaweed is a common name. Seaweed is not defined phylogenetically as it is just big green stuff in the water, and this is discussed in the article (and why the statement in question was made). Even aquatic plants are considered seaweed. Epipelagic confuses algae with seaweed in their argument above: Yes, filamentous cyanobacteria looks like algae, but that is not an assertion here. Epipelagic states that "cannot find a single peer reviewed science paper which refers to cyanobacteria as seaweed" but are there any peer-reviewed articles that define which taxa are included as "seaweed?" It is polyphyletic, hence the text in the article and the {{Paraphyletic group}} box. I agree statements must be cited by reliable sources, but as a prescriptive definition of 'seaweed' is not possible, a descriptive one must be used. --Nessie (talk) 15:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Since "seaweed" is not a scientific term, I agree with NessieVL that it's not right to consider what peer-reviewed or scientific sources say. The appropriate sources for ordinary language terms are dictionaries, such as Merriam Webster's definition. If cyanobacteria form a "mass in the sea", then they constitute a "seaweed" in the broadest ordinary language sense. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Missing word

In the "Ecology" section, there's a word missing: "while the may attach to substrate several meters deep". I assume some word like "roots" was intended, but that's presumably not the correct term for algae. Somebody please fix. GrindtXX (talk) 20:12, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

 Done Nick Moyes (talk) 23:59, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Arboreal redirects to arboreal locomotion

I believe in the sentence "Seaweed's appearance resembles non-arboreal terrestrial plants." arboreal probably shouldn't link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arboreal_locomotion which it currently does. I'm not sure what it should link to, however, if anything at all. Any thoughts? 1106 Lizards (talk) 17:31, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Well, "arboreal" here just means "tree-like", so maybe link to Tree?

I'm not sure why Arboreal redirects to Arboreal locomotion; the most common use here as far as I can see is to mean "tree-living", which isn't the same. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:59, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the sentence is very helpful. What is a non-tree-like plant? Is it comparing seaweeds to bushes, herbs, grasses, ferns or mosses. It doesn't really say much about what seaweeds look like. You could also argue that kelp forests are superficially tree-like. Perhaps it is best omitted.   Jts1882 | talk  08:44, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree it's not a helpful sentence, especially given that "seaweed" is such a vague term, and it's arguable that kelp does resemble arboreal terrestrial plants. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:42, 18 February 2020 (UTC)