Proteins in a Blastomussa merletti coral fluoresce green and red (bottom left in the image above) and red in a Dipsastraea (Favia) sp. coral (top right), when they are illuminated by blue light. These corals live at depths of about 50 meters in Red Sea reefs, where little sunlight reaches them. Fluorescent pigments may serve as sunscreens that protect shallow water corals and their symbiotic algae from the harmful effects of too much sunlight. But why would deep sea corals also fluoresce? Deep in the ocean the symbiotic algae inside the corals struggle to get enough sunlight for photosynthesis, and it’s possible that fluorescence may help these symbionts absorb more light. Fluorescent proteins from corals and other marine organisms including jellyfish and sea anemones also have important applications in biomedical research, where they are routinely used to visualize structures and processes in living cells.
Technical Details:
Coral fluorescence was excited with blue light (~400–450 nm) and photographed with an underwater digital camera.
Credit:
Joerg Wiedenmann, Ph.D., Coral Reef Laboratory, University of Southampton, U.K.
Links:
http://noc.ac.uk/corals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_1935AD8WI
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/techniques/fluorescence/fluorescentpr...
Date created:
12/07/2015
Date modified:
12/07/2015
