merismo: Pyrocystis fusiformisIf you’ve been around on the internet long enough, you’ve
merismo: Pyrocystis fusiformisIf you’ve been around on the internet long enough, you’ve probably seen videos or images of glow-in-the-dark waves in the ocean. You may have also heard that these are caused by bioluminescent plankton, and this happens to be one of two species that commonly cause this strange phenomenon. But what’s the evolutionary advantage of being sparkly?My favorite hypothesis put forth is the “burglar alarm” hypothesis. The idea is that if an organism tries to eat these guys, the bright flash they let off as they get disturbed alerts larger predators, that in turn eat the plankton-muncher. A sort of the enemy of my enemy is my friend situation. We know this set-up occurs in larger (one might say giant) organisms. There’s a deep sea jellyfish called the Atolla jelly that releases bioluminescence when attacked or disturbed. It’s believed to act as a signal for larger predators to eat whatever is attacking the jelly. So scientists placed a camera next to a fake bioluminescent jellyfish in the ocean to see what kind of animals it would attract. Interestingly enough, a giant squid came up to the fake jellyfish but actually ended up attacking the camera next to it (here is a TED talk about it). Could the same thing be happening to these plankton, but on a much smaller scale? -- source link