Faculty Highlights - The Big Switcheroo
It’s been said that you are what you eat. If that truly were the case, some of us would resemble hamburgers or greasy slices of pizza, while others would look more like granola bars or glasses of soy milk.
For one tiny creature, however, the idea of becoming what you eat isn’t that far off base.
Referred to as the “solar-powered” sea slug, Elysia chlorotica has fascinated scientists for years because of its ability to retain “stolen” chloroplasts and carry out photosynthesis as if it were a plant.
Although they are slugs, these small green creatures aren’t the yellowish-brown slimy garden variety. Rather, they are emerald green marine molluscs that look like a plant leaf, and only need to eat early in their life cycle.
Since 1987, University of Maine biochemistry professor Mary Rumpho-Kennedy has been studying Elysia chlorotica found in saltwater marshes along the East Coast from Nova Scotia to North Carolina, and sometimes as far south as Florida.
Rumpho-Kennedy’s recent groundbreaking research offers insight into the potential for evolution of photosynthesis in an animal through symbiosis and gene transfer.
What makes this sea slug different is that it acts more like a plant than an animal. It even looks like a leaf and reacts to sunlight in much the same way as a plant, opening up when exposed to sunlight.
