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Step into this lab, and the archetypal happening that catches your oculus is colour: blue-green and emerald trial tubes glinting nether soft, artificial light. In 1 corner, a researcher peers into a flask swirling with stream scum collected from the Pampa and Achencoil rivers. Across the room, different 1 studies a petri crockery of terrestrial algae gathered from the dense forests of Wayanad.
“We person astir a 100 strains of algae successful our stock,” says Binoy T. Thomas, Head of the Department of Botany astatine Catholicate College, Pathanamthitta, and the pb researcher astatine its Phycotechnology laboratory here. “If required, we tin nutrient the biomass needed for concern applications similar nutrient production, cosmetics, adjacent medicines.”
Supported by the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE), the Phycotechnology laboratory is simply a unsocial installation that has rapidly go a hub for algal research.
According to Dr. Thomas, algae are commanding increasing planetary attention, and for bully reason. “Certain strains could beryllium the aboriginal of food,” helium explains. They tin turn connected arid onshore oregon successful brackish h2o and they devour immense amounts of c dioxide, helping to trim greenhouse state levels.
At present, the laboratory has undertaken 2 large probe projects with backing from the KSCSTE and the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DoECC). The archetypal explores the systematics and ecology of epiphyllous algae , which turn connected leafage surfaces, crossed antithetic vegetation types successful Pathanamthitta district. The 2nd investigates Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) successful the Achencoil and Pampa rivers and their tributaries.
Beyond research, the laboratory serves arsenic a surviving repository of algal cultures, supporting some survey and conservation. Its squad has already made taxonomic contributions by identifying 10 caller algal taxon and documenting 28 caller records from Kerala.
Their curiosity goes adjacent further. The Phycotechnology squad precocious published an planetary survey connected the nutritional imaginable of ungraded greenish microalgae from the Western Ghats, showcasing their committedness arsenic sustainable nutrient supplements. The laboratory besides unraveled 1 of Kerala’s intriguing biology phenomena called the reddish rainfall by identifying Trentepohlia, a carotenoid-rich alga, arsenic the biologic root down the crimson-colored rainfall.
The lab’s expertise besides extends to biology monitoring and freshwater ecosystem management. A survey published successful Indian Hydrobiology (2020) documented the archetypal recorded outbreak of harmful algal blooms successful the Achenkovil River aft the 2019 floods. The bloom, dominated by the toxin-producing alga Euglena, caused a disposable discolouration of the river. Researchers traced the improvement to nutrient enrichment from post-flood cultivation runoff and discarded discharge.
