Effect of different environmental factors on the major chemical constituents of some marine algae

Abstract EN

-An investigation of the effect of 15 environmental factors on ash, crude fibre, lipids, protein and carbohydrate content of Enteromorpha intestinalis (green), Sargassum salicifolium (brown) and Gelidium latifolium (red) revealed that these chemical constituents were influenced by several environmental factors.

On the other hand, the effect of these environmental factors was species - specific.

In general, total soluble salts, nitrite, nitrate, potassium, inorganic phosphorus, pH and water temperature were the major controlling factors; other factors were merely contributory.

Introduction Several factors undoubtedly play a part in the causation of the fluctuation in the chemical composition of marine algae.

According to Macpherson and Young (1952) the fundamental one is the metabolic activity but this is probably controlled by the temperature of the surrounding water, the concentration of essential nutrients and the intensity of light.

In the search of the reasons for fluctuations in composition of marine algae, numerous authors (El-Naggar 1980, Whyte and Englar 1980, Gorham and Lewey 1984, Rosell and Srivastava 1985, Zavednik 1987 and Sway et al., 1991), studied the effect of seasons of the year on the chemical composition.

However, few attempts (Fadeel etal., 1981, Ramus 1983, Duke et al., 1986 and Pettitt etal., 1989) have been made to correlate other environmental factors with the chemical constituents of marine algae.

At the same time, these studies have been confined to a limited number of the environmental factors.