Studies on technology for seaweed forest construction and transplanted Ecklonia cava growth for an artificial seaweed...

We installed seaweed reef for restoration of barron ground coast. We hollowed out a U-shaped groove in a cross-shaped artificial seaweed reef and covered it with a zinc sheet (U-bar) to transplant Ecklonia cava growing on Dellenia wood by hand, installing the U-bar on the artificial seaweed reef, fixing it with concrete. Thus seaweed can be attached easily, with pre-installed stainless bolts and nuts. The length of Ecklonia cava leaf transplanted to the cross-shaped reef was 7.2 cm in February 2005 reached its maximum size, 35.9 cm (n = 30) by July. Thereafter, it decreased to 18.9 cm in October due to shedding. The leaf weight after the experiment was 24.8 from the initial 0.4 cm (n = 30). Regression analysis showed Y = 0.7875X-4.6488 (R2 = 0.7225) for blade length and Y = 0.0025X2.6733 (R2 = 0.8711) for leaf weight. The high values of the R2 values for the two measurements were highly reliable, with the reliability of the linear regression function higher than that of the functions of 2 variables. The artificial seaweed forest constructed in the barren ground was highly comparable with natural seaweed forest in terms of growth, indicating that the artificial seaweed construction can be done in an easy, efficient and economically viable way. This further indicates that the technology developed by the present study can be extensively used for the project for artificial seaweed forest construction.