Compounds Cause UV Radiation Tolerance

aerial photo of a body of water of waves of colorful organisms floating on the surface of the water

Biological Strategy

Marine dinoflagellate

AskNature Team

Image: NASA Earth Observatory / Flickr / Some rights reserved

Protect From Light

Access to sunlight is crucial to living systems because it’s the primary energy source for life. However, too much sunlight in the form of ultraviolet radiation (UV) can cause damage to living tissues. Therefore, living systems have strategies to filter out some or all UV radiation. For example, some plants that live in areas exposed to long periods of direct sunlight have reflective surfaces (such as white hairs or powder) that reflect UV light.

Search this Function

Plants

Phylum Plantae (“plants”): Angiosperms, gymnosperms, green algae, and more

Plants have evolved by using special structures within their cells to harness energy directly from sunlight. There are currently over 350,000 known species of plants which include angiosperms (flowering trees and plants), gymnosperms (conifers, Gingkos, and others), ferns, hornworts, liverworts, mosses, and green algae. While most get energy through the process of photosynthesis, some are partially carnivores, feeding on the bodies of insects, and others are plant parasites, feeding entirely off of other plants. Plants reproduce through fruits, seeds, spores, and even asexually. They evolved around 500 million years ago and can now be found on every continent worldwide.

Search this Living System

Some marine dinoflagellates are protected from UV radiation via mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs).

“Unlike seaweeds, corals and other sessile organisms, several species of dinoflagellates are known to perform daily vertical migrations [47,48]. In the field, when dinoflagellate rise to sea surface to photosynthesize at daytime, cells would induce cellular MAA [mycosporine-like amino acids] level to avoid from harmful UVR in sunlight. This daily variation of cellular MAA content accompanied by the daily vertical migration may be one of the biological protective strategies against harmful UVR in the dinoflagellate.” (Taira et al. 2004:154)

Last Updated September 14, 2016

References

Journal article

Daily variation in cellular content of UV-absorbing compounds mycosporine-like amino acids in the marine dinoflagellate Scrippsiella sweeneyae

Taira, H.; Aoki, S.; Yamanoha, B.; Taguchi, S.

embedly preview

AskNature