Artificial UV-B induced changes in pigmentation of marine diatom Coscinodiscus gigas.

In vitro studies in marine diatom Coscinodiscus gigas revealed that artificial UV-B radiation (313 nm) at a dose level of 0.4W m(-2) for a continuous period of 3 hours in a UV treatment chamber caused disbursement of chromatophores from their normal loci and resulted in clumping / aggregation of chromatophores exhibiting a phenomenon called UV-B induced syntrophism. It is also understood that such clumping could cause only insignificant reduction in photosynthetic oxygen release.