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  3. When we think of animals and plants, we have a pretty good way of dividing them into two distinct groups: one converts sunlight

When we think of animals and plants, we have a pretty good way of dividing them into two distinct groups: one converts sunlight

admin2021-01-06  28
问题    When we think of animals and plants, we have a pretty good way of dividing them into two distinct groups: one converts sunlight into energy and the other has to eat food to make its energy. Well, those dividing lines come crashing down with the discovery of a sea slug (嗨蛞蝓) that’s truly half animal and half plant. It’s pretty incredible how it has managed to hijack the genes of the algae (藻类) on which it feeds.
   The slugs can manufacture chlorophyll, the green pigment (色素) in plants that captures energy from sunlight, and hold these genes within their body. The term kleptoplasty is used to describe the practice of using hijacked genes to create nutrients from sunlight. And so far, this green sea slug is the only known animal that can be truly considered solar-powered, although some animals do exhibit some plant-like behaviors. Many scientists have studied the green sea slugs to confirm that they are actually able to create energy from sunlight.
   In fact, the slugs use the genetic material so well that they pass it on to their future generations. Their babies retain the ability to produce their own chlorophyll, though they can’t generate energy from sunlight until they’ve eaten enough algae to steal the necessary genes, which they can’t yet produce on their own.
   "There’s no way on earth that genes from an alga should work inside an animal will," says Sidney Pierce from the University of South Florida. "And yet here, they do. They allow the animal to rely on sunshine for its nutrition. So if something happens to their food source, they have a way of not starving to death until they find more algae to eat."
   The sea slugs are so good at gathering energy from the sun that they can live up to nine months without having to eat any food. They get all their nutritional needs met by the genes that they’ve hijacked from the algae.
What enables the sea slug to live like a plant?
选项 A、The genes it captures from the sea plant algae.
B、The mechanism by which it conserves energy.
C、The nutrients it hijacks from other species.
D、The green pigment it inherits from its ancestors.
答案A
解析 推理判断题。定位段提到，海蛞蝓能够制造叶绿素，这种植物体内的绿色色素从阳光中获取能量，并且把这种基因保存在体内。盗食质体这个术语用来描述利用被劫持的基因从阳光中制造营养物质的行为。由此可知，海蛞蝓之所以能够像植物一样活着，是因为它从藻类身上获取了可以制造叶绿素的基因，故答案为A)。
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