Handbook for biobanking of kelp in British Columbia

The Pacific Salmon Foundation collaborated with Dr. Sherryl Bisgrove’s team, including Dr. Liam Coleman and Silven Read, at Simon Fraser University. They focused on conservation of marine habitats in the Salish Sea, particularly kelp forests, which appear to be declining.

To mitigate further kelp losses, the Bisgrove team are working to establish a novel biobank for kelp and other marine plants. A biobank is a facility where reproductive material of organisms such as kelp can be stored long-term and later used for a variety of purposes, such as restoring populations or contributing to ongoing research. As part of this biobank project, Dr. Bisgrove’s team researched cutting-edge cryopreservation methods to improve how kelp samples are stored, as well as conducting experiments to characterize how much variation there is in thermotolerance in local kelp populations, which will tell researchers which kelp populations are likely to survive at different temperatures. It is the hope of Dr. Bisgrove and her team that the biobank and the research being conducted for it will help save local kelp forests, improve salmon recovery, and aid future restoration programs.