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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
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 Schnee21:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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 Botany22:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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} Osborne14:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"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 Botany03:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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".Osborne12:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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. Kingdon20:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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).
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)[reply]
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.
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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 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.
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Microscopic of macroscopic in lead first sentence?[edit]
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)[reply]
"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:
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 | talk10:30, 25 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Iremoved 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)[reply]
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 | talk12:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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 | talk08:44, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]