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Red Algae Thrive Despite Ancestor’s Massive Loss of Genes

October 29, 2019 sarah Jonas 0 Comments Adaptation, Algae, China, Climate Change, Coastal, coastlines, Coral Reefs, Crops, Ecology, Ecosystem, Emulsifiers, Environment, Evolution, extreme environments, food thickeners, genes, Genetics, Genome, Habitats, Hot Springs, Japan, Korea, Kyungpook National University, Light, light-harvesting, linker proteins, Molecular Biology, near-shore, New Jersey, NJ, Nori, Ocean, Oceans, Pests, Phoenix, Photosynthesis, photosystem II, phycobilisomes, Phytoplankton, Pollution, Porphyridium, proteins, red algae, red seaweeds, Research, Rutgers, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Science, Seaweed, shorelines, South Korea, Sungkyunkwan University, Sushi, water

You’d think that losing 25 percent of your genes would be a big problem for survival. But not for red algae, including the seaweed used to wrap sushi. An ancestor of red algae lost about a quarter of its genes roughly one billion years ago, but the algae still became dominant in near-shore coastal areas around the world, according to Rutgers University–New Brunswick Professor Debashish Bhattacharya, who co-authored a study in the journal Nature Communications.