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Q & A:
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Find out more about Dr. Edie Widder's primary focus of research-- learning how and why deep sea animals make their own light.
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Is there a question you'd like to ask our intrepid correspondent? Send us an email at
AskAtSea@hboi.edu.
Selected questions will be forwarded to Brian, and we'll post the answers online.
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Responses to emails sent to "AskAtSea."
Dear Scientist,
Hello! I am doing a school project on bioluminescence and had a couple
questions. I was just wondering which way ctenorphores mouths are
pointed when they are swimming around in the water? Also, are all
ctenophores bioluminescent? And what is the difference between
bioluminescence and phosphorescence?
Thanks!
Cindy Willowinski
Freshman at Dos Pueblos High School
Santa Barbara, California
Dear Cindy, Thanks for your questions about ctenophores. They happen to be very close to questions that I'm interested in. Comb jellies can swim in any direction in the water, but the most commonly seen kind, which fish with their two long tentacles, usually sit in the water with their mouths pointing upwards, opposite how you would think of a jellyfish sitting. These same kinds (called Pleurobrachia or the sea gooseberry) happen to be one of the few kinds of ctenophores that don't bioluminesce. Amazingly, almost all the other kinds can make light, so we think this ability must be pretty important for something! Bioluminescence used to be called phosphorescence, but now these terms describe two different phenomena. Bioluminescence is when a chemical reaction inside an organism produces light, and phosphorescence is what happens with glow-in-the-dark stickers -- you shine a light on a material, then that energy is absorbed and slowly released over time as a long glow.
Steve Haddock
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Hi! I have a quick question about bioluminescent jellyfish: I read
somewhere that jellyfish need to eat bioluminescent prey in order
bioluminesce themselves. Is this true? How would someone go about
researching this question?
Vernon Franck
Graduate student,
University of California Santa Barbara
At this point, there is no good answer to your question. Bioluminescence requires two types of chemicals: one to make the light (luciferin) and one to trigger the reaction (luciferase). In some fish, it has been shown that they must eat a certain ostracod (a "seed shrimp") to get the luciferin to make light. There are also some shrimp which need to get luciferin from their diet, but others seem to make it themselves. It is an interesting question where the luciferin which is used by so many animals originates.
In Monterey, my co-workers and I are working on finding the source of luciferin in jellyfish, but haven't published the results yet. It looks like there may be some interesting surprises, and I'll be continuing the experiments as soon as I return from sea, so I could give you a complete answer soon.
Good luck with your studies.
Steve Haddock
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
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