Pinpricks of lighting on the coast seem to mirror stars above in a picture taken on Vaadhoo Island in the Maldives. The biological light, or bioluminescence, in the waves is the product of marine microbes called phytoplankton and now scientists considers they know how several of these life-forms generate their brilliant blue glow. A variety of species of phytoplankton are recognized to bioluminesce, and their lights can be seen in oceans all around the world, said by Woodland Hasting a marine biologist and bioluminescence expert.
I have been across the Atlantic and Pacific, and never seen a mark that wasn’t bioluminescent or a night that bioluminescence couldn’t be seen. The most familiar type of marine bioluminescence is created by phytoplankton recognized as dinoflagellates. A new study co-authored by Hastings has for the first time identified a special channel in the dinoflagellate cell membrane that responds to electrical signals offering a potential mechanism for how the algae create their exclusive illumination.
The newly found channel had just the right properties required to trigger the flash. If you replaced the dinoflagellate channel with the corresponding cell channel from humans or mice or snails, so it could not do the right job. The dinoflagellates float, movement in the surrounding water propels electrical impulses around a proton-filled compartment inside the microorganisms. The electrical pulses unlock the voltage-sensitive proton channels, triggering a series of chemical reactions, which eventually activate a protein called luciferase that produces the neon blue light.
