Re: [DIYbio] Symbiotic Sea Slugs: meeting Saturday the 19th

I see. Wonders me a bit. I could imagine,
if it would only be disadvantegous for the algae,
they would over the generations try to
poison the slug in order to avoid being eaten.
Therefore I would expect some kind of "payment".
Even if it's "only" the spread of the for itself
immobile algae across some distances.
But if they are only digested, it's
not a symbiosis (in the sense of mutualism).

- Matthias


Am Freitag, den 11.05.2012, 21:09 -0400 schrieb Avery louie:
> Ah. The algae gets...eaten.
>
> lots of info here.
>
> the short version is that at birth, the slugs eat some of this aglae
> and suck out the soft center out of the filamentous algae, and somehow
> separate the chloroplasts from the rest of the cell. Then they
> integrate the chloroplasts into their gut lining and the chloroplasts
> do their thing and make food.
>
> Normally, the chloroplasts would die shortly thereafter because the
> chloroplasts lack the proteins needed for complete chloroplast upkeep,
> but the slugs have somehow acquired the genes needed to make those
> proteins, so they an actually maintain the chloroplasts.
>
> --A


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