Evaluating the palatability of Tasmania’s native sea grapes (Caulerpa spp.): a potential new seafood
Landon-Lane, Micah R., Sawyer, Samantha, Wilson, Matthew, Tatsumi, Masayuki, de Nys, Rocky, Hurd, Catriona L., and Wright, Jeffrey (2025) Evaluating the palatability of Tasmania’s native sea grapes (Caulerpa spp.): a potential new seafood. Journal of Applied Phycology, 37. pp. 2947-2963.
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Abstract
We assessed the palatability of four Tasmanian Caulerpa sea grape species: C. geminata, C. hodgkinsoniae, C. sedoides, and C. simpliciuscula, and quantitatively evaluated the palatability profiles of these species with commercially available C. lentillifera. Initial palatability was assessed through a hedonic human sensory evaluation, followed by quantitative instrumental sensory evaluation of tastes and volatile organic compounds using an electronic tongue (e-tongue) and headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GCMS). The hedonic human sensory evaluation found three species to have a positive overall liking of approximately seven out of nine, while the fourth species, C. hodgkinsoniae, was significantly less liked overall. This initial evaluation found that the attributes of taste and texture were most influential in driving the separation in overall liking between C. hodgkinsoniae and the other, more palatable Tasmanian species. However, the e-tongue found few differences among the tastes of the five species, with most of the significant differences being small in magnitude, and as such the non-volatile component was unlikely to be the reason why C. hodgkinsoniae was disliked. Analysis with GCMS, however, found significant differences among the five species, indicating that the aroma profiles of these seaweeds play an important role in their palatability and hence potential culinary acceptance. Overall, our results highlight the potential for the Tasmanian sea grape species C. geminata, C. sedoides, and C. simpliciuscula as comparable to the benchmark for edible species of Caulerpa, C. lentillifera, given their positive hedonic human sensory evaluation in combination with comparable flavour profiles determined instrumentally by e-tongue and GCMS.
| Item ID: | 88643 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1573-5176 |
| Keywords: | Caulerpa, Chlorophyceae, Electronic tongue, GCMS, Sea grapes, Seaweed palatability |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Date Deposited: | 05 Jun 2026 06:50 |
| FoR Codes: | 30 AGRICULTURAL, VETERINARY AND FOOD SCIENCES > 3005 Fisheries sciences > 300501 Aquaculture @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 26 PLANT PRODUCTION AND PLANT PRIMARY PRODUCTS > 2699 Other plant production and plant primary products > 269903 Plant product traceability and quality assurance (excl. forest products) @ 100% |
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