Sacoglossan sea slugs feed by suctorially consuming siphonaceous green algae. Most sacoglossan species are feeding specialists, but the Caribbean coral reef-dwelling Elysia crispata is polyphagous and sequesters chloroplasts from multiple algal species into cells lining its digestive diverticulum for use in photosynthesis. We have used sequences of the chloroplast-encoded rbcL gene to compare the chloroplast donor algae in five populations of E. crispata from various Caribbean locations. We found that E. crispata utilizes more algal species than was previously known, including some algae previously not reported as present in the region. In addition, slugs from each location had unique chloroplast arrays with little overlap, except that all locations had slugs feeding on algae within the genus Bryopsis. This variation in diet between locations suggests that the slugs may be exhibiting local adaptation in their dietary choices, and it highlights ecological differences between the Caribbean-wide reef-dwelling ecotypes and the mangrove lagoon ecotypes found in the Florida Keys.

中文翻译：

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Sacoglossan 海蛞蝓中隔离叶绿体的藻类来源因位置和生态型而异

Sacoglossan 海蛞蝓以吸食虹吸绿藻为食。大多数 sacoglossan 物种是饲养专家，但居住在加勒比珊瑚礁的 Elysia crista 是多食性的，将多种藻类的叶绿体隔离到消化憩室内壁的细胞中，用于光合作用。我们已经使用叶绿体编码的 rbcL 基因的序列来比较来自不同加勒比地区的五个 E.criscata 种群中的叶绿体供体藻类。我们发现 E.criscata 利用比以前已知的更多的藻类物种，包括一些以前未报告为该地区存在的藻类。此外，来自每个位置的蛞蝓都有独特的叶绿体阵列，几乎没有重叠，除了所有位置都有以苔藓属内藻类为食的蛞蝓。