Controls algal blooms. The fact that single-scell Dinophysis algae steal organs that convert sunlight into energy and bind carbon to the plant biomass may be significant for their poisonous algal blooms. Photograph: Linné University, Kalmar.
Chloroplasts are the "organ" in plants and microalgae that convert sunlight into energy and bind carbon to the plant biomass. With the help of stolen chloroplasts, the Dinophysis algae can themselves develop this ability, which presumably contributes to their success in nature.
These single-cell algae are common in the Baltic Sea and marine coastal waters all over the world. They belong to species that can form poisonous algal blooms, which are primarily a problem for mussel farmers since the mussels become inedible during periods when the algae occur in large quantities. The Dinophysis species live both as plants that use photosynthesis, and as animals that eat other organisms. Postgraduate student Susanna Minnhagen has investigated whether they inherit their chloroplasts from their "parents", or whether each generation of algae must take up new chloroplasts temporarily as a prey from other species in the plankton community. She has found that they cannot make their own chloroplasts, but must steal them.