Potencial biotecnológico das espécies marinhas bentônicas de Arraial do Cabo

Abstract

Oceans have existed for millions of years and have the greatest diversity on the planet. Most of the marine organims contain many unknown substances that can be used in different areas. Biotechnology plays an important role in the discovery and in the sustainability of these substances present in marine organisms with great impact on the countries' economies. In Brazil, marine biotechnology is an emerging field with promising achievements in the areas of biochemistry, genetics, genomics, aquaculture, bioenergy and other related fields. In the present study, an evaluation of the biotechnological potential of the marine biodiversity of the rocky coasts of Arraial do Cabo was carried out. We use the methodology developed by Menezes (2019) to screen, based on the literature, relevant species in areas of application of Marine Biotechnology using the species checklists from the catalogue “ Biodiversity of the Rocky Coasts of Arraial do Cabo” publised by Batista and collaborators in 2020. The results showed that the methodology reduced the time for bibliographic search, linked to biotechnology, for each species listed in the catalogue, indicating that it is possible to use data from locations with great biodiversity and little knowledge about the species. In the specific case of the Arraial do Cabo region, this study showed that several marine benthic species that occur in this region have a high biotechnological potential. Among them, Rachycentron canadum, Ulva fasciata, Asparagopsis taxiformis, Bugula neritina and Palythoa caribaeorum were the most relevant to the algoritm.