Christine Maggs Confirms 40-Year-Old Pink Seaweed Find as New Species
Updated
Updated · bbc.co.uk · Jul 31
Christine Maggs Confirms 40-Year-Old Pink Seaweed Find as New Species
3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Jul 31
Summary
Ceramium ruenessianum has been confirmed as a species new to science after Prof Christine Maggs spent more than 40 years trying to formally identify the tiny pink-banded seaweed.
A Cornwall maerl-bed survey two years ago finally produced enough material for Maggs to grow the algae, sequence its DNA with Prof Beatriz de Barros Barreto and match it to the fragment first spotted during her PhD.
The species has now entered the Natural History Museum collection, and Maggs' paper is due to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Phycologia.
The find highlights how maerl beds—rare, threatened habitats in Britain—still hold undocumented biodiversity, with the newly recorded seaweed also found in south Cornish beds that are not formally protected.
Researchers and outside experts said the discovery could strengthen the case for conserving maerl beds, which support diverse marine life and face policy trade-offs with fisheries and offshore wind development.
Could the discovery of the elusive pink-zebra weed finally force authorities to protect Cornwall’s fragile, carbon-storing maerl beds from imminent destruction?
What hidden biochemical secrets might this newly identified Cornish seaweed hold for the rapidly expanding global aquaculture and pharmacology industries?
After hiding for four decades, could revealing the exact location of this rare pink-striped seaweed inadvertently expose its unprotected habitat to new threats?