C&EN reports on Rasher’s marine slug research
C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) reported on marine slug research led by Douglas Rasher, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Maine Darling Marine Center, and researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology. The researchers found the marine slug Elysia tuca sniffs out the seaweed Halimeda incrassate so it can steal the algae’s chloroplasts and chemical weapons, according to the article. The slug then uses the chloroplasts to make its own energy from sunlight. “It’s a solar-powered slug,” Rasher says, adding it gets 60 percent of its fixed carbon from the stolen photosynthetic organelles. The slug also steals the seaweed’s toxic arsenal of halimedatetraacetate — one of the compounds used by the slug to track the seaweed — for use as its own defense, the article states. UPI also carried a report on the research.