Antarctic Algae Forests Could Provide New Cancer Medicines
24.03.2010 - Water & Oceans, Flora & Fauna, Antarctic
A team of scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham are in the middle of a three-month diving expedition at Palmer Station on the West coast of Antarctica. The team is focusing on the creatures living in the algae forest in the cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean in the search for potential new cancer medicines. They will also investigate the ecosystems in the underwater forests and study the interactions between the plants and other living organisms that live there.
The forests they have encountered thus far consist of four main species of large algae:
- Desmarestia menziesii
- Desmarestia anceps
- Himantothallus grandifolius
- Cystosphaera jacquinotii
These four species of macroalgae are divided into three groups according to their colour: brown, red, and green. The different colours are mainly due to the different types of pigments featured in the plants, which capture light and are bound to special proteins that are able to pass the energy from the light to other proteins. These other proteins then use the energy to pick the carbon from carbon dioxide molecules in the water and turn them into sugars, and then use the sugars and carbon atoms connected to the sugars to grow – similar to the process of photosynthesis in plants.
Among the algae, the brown variety has been found to be the dominant kind, although leaving ground for the red algae to develop the most important number of species. The latter, mostly dominant in very shallow waters, are crucial in terms of biodiversity.
In the deepest waters, where there is not enough sunlight for algae to grow, invertebrate animals dominate.
