About the Authors

Masanori Hiraoka

mhiraoka@kochi-u.ac.jp

Affiliation Usa Marine Biological Institute, Kochi University, Usa, Tosa, Kochi, Japan

Kensuke Ichihara

Affiliation Department of Natural History Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

Wenrong Zhu

Affiliation Xianshan Xuwen Seaweed Development Co., Ltd., Jiangdong, Ningbo, China

Jiahai Ma

Affiliation Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, China

Satoshi Shimada

Affiliation Division of the Natural/Applied Sciences, Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, Ochanomizu University, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts. WZ is employed by a commercial company, Xianshan Xuwen Seaweed Development Co., Ltd. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MH WZ JM. Performed the experiments: MH KI SS. Analyzed the data: MH KI SS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MH KI WZ JM SS. Wrote the paper: MH.