Macroalgae from Container Terminal at the San-Pédro Port (Côte d’Ivoire)

Abstract

An environmental and social impact study of the construction project of a Container Terminal at the San-Pédro Port (CTSP) was carried out in June 2021 with the aim of establishing an additional reference base for the biodiversity assessment and critical habitats. Within this study, the methodology applied consisted at the uprooting of a hydrophyte at 9:55 a.m. with the help of experienced divers at the station S10, 12m deep, a site close to the mouth and the zone intended for accommodate the marine base. The hydrophyte collected was photographed in situ. A fragment of the sample collected was preserved in 10% formalin for cytological analyze by application of the double carmino-green method and morphological description for its identification. The morphological description revealed that this hydrophyte would be the red macroalga Gelidium latifolium (Greville) Bornet & Thuret, 1876 due to its morphology characterized by a thallus with the appearance of comb-toothed bough whose frond and stipe rise to from the stolon. The analyzes results from the thin sections made indicated the impossibility of observing stained tissues after application of the carmino-green double staining method and tissues observed without applying this method. Specific name confirmation of the red macroalga harvested from genetics by applying the barcoding technique could will thus reveal the sequence of the genus-specific DNA fragment.