Bioactive Compounds Potential of Discard Species in Trawl Fisheries

Abstract

Alongside the targeted species, a lot of economically unimportant species are caught during fishing activities. So much as that the biomass amount of these species in the total catch amounts to %75-80 in some areas of the Mediterranean Sea. Non-target or non-commercial catches are defined as discard, generally brought onto the deck of fishing vessels and then returned to the sea. Although some species are included in the commercial part, they might be determined as discard because of unmarketable consideration. Unmarketable, sizes may change with fishing time and depth depending on fishermen.These discard part in catch could be considered in order to discover new marine bioactive compounds. Approximately, thousands of bioactive compounds, originated by a marine organism, are known and more than 1,000 new compounds are discovered annually since 2010. Also, the biodiversity of marine species enables the discovery of new bioactive substances and the creation of new perspectives such as the acquirement of the different forms of known substances. "Collagen" can be given as an example regarding the bioactive material which can both be acquired from mammals and marine species with the most widespread use. The key properties of the marine collagen can be listed as having a low alternative effect, high biodegradation and having a contribution to cell development. With all this, the systems that are based on marine collagens have some disadvantages, at the helm of them its denaturalization at low heat depending on the substance collagen type variations. But still, the use of this material in the medical field and cosmetics is becoming widespread because of the possibility that its attributes can be developed with various biochemical. Indeed, chondroitin sulphate, chitin and chitosan are known to be acquired from various marine species.The abundance of the species in the marine ecosystem obligates the spread of multidisciplinary catching on different fields regarding the fishing sector in today's economy. For the preparation of base regarding multidisciplinary cooperation, it is necessary to determine the capacity of the sources yielded via scientific studies and their application areas.In this study, it is revealed potential alternative biotechnological applications of different industries such as drugs and medical devices by using previous discard data in Turkish Sea’s.