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Susan Devine: Sea slugs are invertebrate molluscs. They are soft-bodied and the sea slugs we are studying are able to photosynthesize. That is, they eat the algae and take up chloroplast and photosynthesize like a plant even though they are animals.
Helen Mattsson: We are investigating this animal because it has the ability to make its own food. In our lab, sea slugs with enough light can live nine months without eating. So, we are investigating what processes allow that to happen and how did these sea slugs acquire the genome they needed to do this.
Susan Devine: We are hoping to find out that some of the algae genome that — because the algae itself obviously can photosynthesize, that’s how it survives — we are hoping to find that some of this genome has actually passed across all the barriers and incoporated itself into the sea slug so that the sea slug can actually function like a plant.
Helen Mattsson: If we wait a little while they might open up. They open up like leaves. We can see how they increase their surface area to capture the sunlight and that is what enables them to use the chloroplast effectively.
Helen Mattsson: This is a really unique opportunity. Our project focuses on the bacteria that live in association with this sea slug to see if they contribute any essential nutrients. And this is not research or even the scope of a project that we would be able to take on if we weren’t doing our senior thesis research in this lab.
Susan Devine: I think it’s just an opportunity that not many undergraduates have. And that we’ll be able to take this out to the workforce and say that we have worked through an entire project. We have learned how to do so many different techniques. We have worked with other people. We have worked independently. And it’s just something you don’t normally get to do in your four-year experience before you’ve moved on. This is more like opportunities that masters students get. So, it’s really great to be able to do it in a small lab by ourselves right now.
