海洋发光甲藻研究进展

A review on bioluminescent dinoflagellates in the ocean

海洋发光甲藻是指海洋中在受到物理扰动刺激时可以发出可见光的一类甲藻,是海洋中非常重要的发光生物类群,也是海洋浮游植物中唯一具有发光能力的类群。近些年,由于其独特的发光功能,发光甲藻被人类应用到很多方面,比如环境污染物的毒性检测、海洋浮游植物的生物量监测和有害藻华的预警,以及海洋军事中的追踪和探潜等。国外关于海洋发光甲藻的研究起步较早,目前在分类、生态乃至生理和生化方面都取得了一定的进展。国内该方面的研究起步较晚且较少,相关的基础和应用性研究亟需开展。本文针对当前国内、外关于发光甲藻的研究进行综述,介绍了海洋发光甲藻的种类和分布、发光的机理及其影响因素,同时对发光甲藻的应用领域及未来的研究方向进行了总结和展望。希望可以引起国内同行的重视,并为相关研究提供借鉴和参考。

Marine bioluminescent dinoflagellates are a kind of organisms which can emit visible light when stimulated by physical disturbance in the ocean. They are important bioluminescent organisms, and are the only phytoplankton group with bioluminescent ability in the ocean. In recent years, due to their unique bioluminescent function, bioluminescent dinoflagellates are used by humans in several aspects, such as toxicity test of environmental pollutants, monitoring of marine phytoplankton biomass and warning of harmful algal blooms, and antisubmarine detection in the marine military, etc. In developed countries, study on bioluminescent dinoflagellates started earlier, and there have been already some progress achieved in not only classification and ecological but also physiological and biochemical aspects on the bioluminescent dinoflagellates. In our country, study on bioluminescent dinoflagellates is quite few, and basic and applied research should be urgent to be carried out. In this article, we review the studies on bioluminescent dinoflagellates in recent years, including their species composition, distribution, the mechanism of their bioluminescence, and the application field of them. Finally, future research directions of them are summarized and prospected. We hope this review can attracted attention of other scientists and provide reference for their studies.