Triin Toom

• The Underwater Conversation with Bladderwrack — Proposals to Maintain its Habitats
• Tutor: Marie Vihmar

This master’s thesis was inspired by the influence of mankind on the Baltic Sea and the destruction of bladderwrack habitats due to it, in addition the interest in finding out how algae functions. The bladderwrack must fight with constant climate change in order to survive and retain its growth environment, nutrients and light. In total devastation on the bladderwrack the Baltic Sea sealife would lose a source of food, the eco-system would fall apart and there would be less carbon dioxide retained.

The aim of the master’s thesis was to find out the reasons why the growth sites of the bladder wreck are destroyed and propose alternative solutions for their preservation.

To summarize my work, I found that potential bladderwrack growth sites could be created taking advantage of existing objects in the sea and adding proposed design solutions. For example the design solutions could be use in places where the seabed is softer and not suitable for bladderwrack to attach to the seabed. However, maintaining habitats is a complex and long-term process in which human activities as well as climatic factors such as wind direction and salinity play a big role in. I think it is high time we took advantage of the benefits in the Baltic Sea where conditions allow large-scale algae farms in Estonia. The future could see the use of designed brain-plates in algae farms for growing bladderwrack. By maintaining bladderwrack habitats we can contribute to slow down the collapse of Baltic Sea ecosystem and overall fight climate change.