A decade ago, scientists discovered that small marine worms and crustaceans transport pollen between flowering seagrass. Now, another research team has found a possible new pollinator.
The birds and the bees are expert pollinators on land, but how does this vital task happen in the sea? A decade ago, scientists discovered small marine worms and crustaceans transport pollen between flowering seagrass, and now another research team has found a possible new pollinator: a slender crustacean called an isopod that swims between red algae with its sperm cells stuck to its body, fertilizing the plant as it grazes.
“It’s a really exciting piece of work,” says Susan Kalisz, a plant evolutionary ecologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who was not involved with the research. That’s because most plant fertilization in the ocean takes place without animal help, with eggs and sperm brought together by the sloshing of seawater. But with more sleuthing, Kalisz says, researchers might turn up further examples of animal-assisted pollination.
Myriam Valero, a population geneticist at CNRS, the French national research agency, has been studying the genetics of the red algafor many years in the tidepools of Europe. The reproduction of the plant is unusual. In many marine organisms, males and females release their sperm and egg cells to mix in the water. In the case of, however, things are more complicated: The female alga doesn’t release its egg cells, but keeps them inside funnel-shaped filaments.
Valero noticed the algae were often covered with crawling isopods, 4-centimeter-long crustaceans that look a bit like slender pillbugs. She wondered whether the particular species,, might be transporting the sperm from male to female algae. Under the microscope, it was clear that tiny sperm stick to the isopod. “We began to think maybe it can have the same role as a pollinator,” she says.
The team raised virgin female algae in the laboratory, then put them into tanks with male algae. In some of the tanks, they added isopods.ScienceIdotea balthica
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