Plant and Cell Physiology, 1969, Vol. 10, No. 2 325-335
© 1969
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Pigments and a UV-absorbing substance in corals and a blue-green alga living in the Great Barrier Reef1
The Tokugawa Institute for Biological Research Mejiromachi, Tokyo and Tokyo Institute of Technology Meguroku, Tokyo, Japan
Pigments and UV-absorbing substances in several species of corals and a blue-green alga harvested in the environs of the Great Barrier Reef were studied by measuring the in vivo reflection spectra of intact samples and absorption spectra of their water extracts with a recording spectrophotometer set on a biological research vessel. Red, pink, mauve and violet colors of four species of Acropora were thus found to be due to differences in the relative content of two pigments designated as P(pigment)-560 and P-590, according to the maximum wavelength in mµ of their major absorption peaks. A yellow species of Acropora and a red species of Pocillopora contained different pigments, P-500 and P-480, respectively. All these five species of corals contained, in addition to the above pigments, a UV-absorbing substance having an absorption peak near 320 mµ. The contents of this substance in the organisms seemed to be very high as judged from its band height relative to band heights of the visible pigment bands. Blue-green algal cells harvested near the same environs contained a similar UV-absorbing substance in addition to phycobilin pigments. The spectral characteristics of the pigments and the UV-absorbing substance found in the corals and alga are presented in this paper.
1The present study was carried out in cooperation with Drs. F. T. HAXO, P. HALLDAL and S. W. JEFFREY on the research vessel, R. V. "Alpha Helix", of University of California during the 1966 expedition to the Great Barrier Reef, North Queensland, Australia, and was supported by the National Science Foundation of the U. S. A.
(Received December 3, 1968; )
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