Plant power: Plants vs fish!
Like 2 Dislike 0 Published on 13 Nov 2015
Plants vs fish! is part of a series of six animations about the ways that everyday plants are doing amazing things.
Could plants help to save our seas?
Population growth means more mouths to feed. We eat a lot of fish, but the oceans aren’t getting any bigger and most of the fish we consume is now farmed. That includes salmon, an important source of long chain omega 3 fatty acids that keep us healthy. But in order to maintain high levels of omega 3’s, salmon and other fish are raised on a diet of fish food that is sourced from the ocean which could damage the ocean in the future.
But what if we could get the long chain omega 3’s we need into fish food using, you guessed it… plants.
If researchers take the right genes out of omega 3 producing algae in the sea, and put them into an oil-producing land plant called camelina, then we could grow the food that farmed fish need to be rich in omega 3’s.
Scientists in the UK are working on this, and the impact could be massive. We could get omega 3 from a more sustainable source without depleting the oceans.
This is another way scientists are making plants do amazing things.
Read more here: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/news/food-security/2015/150708-pr-first-gm-oilseed-crop-omega-3-fish-oils-field/
http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/plantpower
See BBSRC News for the latest news, features and events: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/news
For science tweets, follow BBSRC on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bbsrc