Some time ago I wrote a post about animals that in one way or another are able to use photosynthesis to obtain part of their nourishment. I am reposting an updated version of the original post below. But in the meantime, I wanted to tell you that a couple of days ago I found out that a vertebrate, the common spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum; below) is another example of a plantimal! This salamander species is in a symbiotic relationship with an single cell algae (Oophila amblystomatis). A summary of this research can be found here.
I cannot say it enough; biology is fascinating. The original “plantimals” post is right below.
Picture credit: eol.org
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/salamander-is-worlds-first-photosynthetic-vertebrate
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100730/full/news.2010.384.html
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Plantimals
For reasons that we are not getting into right now (if you are curious, is because of the second law of thermodynamics), all living organisms need energy, no exceptions. This energy is used in all the multiple processes essential to life. As the Red Queen said in Carroll’s famous story Through the Looking-Glass (you may know it as “Alice in Wonderland”):
“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”
Even when you are still, your body is doing a lot of things! Many of those things have to do precisely with self-maintenance, effectively running as fast as it can to keep the status quo.
Depending on the specific kind of life, we will find various strategies that life uses to harvest that energy from the environment. Entities like plants and certain microorganisms are called autotrophs, which usually means that they use a process called photosynthesis, through which they capture radiant energy (light) and convert it into chemical energy. There are other types of autotrophs that gather energy from sources other than light, but we will talk about them at some other time. Then there are the heterotrophs, which must consume other organisms for survival; we humans belong in this category. Heterotrophs collect chemical energy directly from other organisms. In other words, anything that eats other organisms is an heterotroph (even vegetarians).
Green plants collect light energy through special organelles (little organs) in their cells called chloroplasts (sometimes called plastids), which have their own interesting story. Chloroplasts and a related organelle, the mitochondria, seem to be the descendants of ancient bacteria that associated themselves with other cells billions of years ago. This idea is called the Endosymbiont Theory, and again, we can talk about it some other time.
Now, in all fairness you may be getting inpatient and think, “well, what does this guy want to talk about… now?”
Well, what if I told you that there are forms of life that are both autotrophs and heterotrophs?
I like telling my students that biology is a science of exceptions. You see, besides us, no other organism has ever taken a biology class, so they do not really care about what a professor like me says about what life is, what life is not, how do we classify life or even how organisms should behave.
There are several types of critters that engage in the rather dishonest practice of kleptoplasty, which is exactly what it sounds like. These guys steal chloroplasts from other organisms that they eat (talk about adding insult to injury). One of the most beautiful is the sea slug Elysia chlorotica. Yes, I called a sea slug “beautiful”, and here’s why:
Picture credit: eol.org
These slugs manage to spare the chloroplasts in the algae that they eat from digestion. Further, they incorporate those chloroplasts within their system, effectively turning into a “solar-powered slug”. E. chlorotica is not born a photosynthetic animal; when the little slugs hatch from the egg, they are brownish with red spots. They only acquire their characteristic green color when they eat certain types of green algae.
On the other hand, there is a recently discovered organism, an aphid (essentially a bug) which is a photosynthesizing guy in its own right. Now, this is a true plantimal. By the way, I did not invent the term “plantimal”, but I am not sure where I heard it from…
Anyway, photosynthesizing bugs; I know, not as beautiful as Elysia, but pretty cool nonetheless…
(:-)
Picture credit: eol.org
If you want to know more:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/green-sea-slug/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/green-aphid-photosynthesis/
Pharmacology – Biology – Neuroscience – Science – Research – Planaria – Writing – Education – Autism
Quibble “Because salamanders can regrow limbs, almost all the cells in a grown adult retain a degree of pluripotency — that is, the specialized cells can continue to divide and change into other cell types throughout the salamander’s life. ”
If the cells were retaining their pluripotency, they would be stem cells not undifferentiated cells doing their job, I think likely he was saying that almost all tissue contained pluripotent stem cells because they can regenerate limbs. I am assuming the salamanders have an adaptive immune system but there seems to be a relationship between regeneration and the adaptive immune system. Also, what keeps the large organelles with their own DNA from triggering an autoimmune response? Mitochondria is widely regarded as an endosymbiant perhaps the algae is in the process of evolving as an organelle similar to other double membrane organelles.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention as our favorite Vulcan would say, “fascinating.”
You are welcome, Master Jedi. BTW, I spent this afternoon with the planarian pharmacology “Guru”, and we extensively talked research… (:-)
I am envious of the fly on the wall so to speak 🙂