Evolution in extreme environments has produced life forms with amazing abilities and traits. Beneath the waves, many creatures sport iridescent structures that rival what materials scientists can make in the laboratory. A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Santa Barbara, has now shown how giant clams use these structures to thrive, operating as exceedingly efficient, living greenhouses that grow symbiotic algae as a source of food.

This understanding could have implications for alternative energy research, paving the way for new types of solar panels or improved reactors for growing biofuel.

The study was led by Alison Sweeney, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in Penn's School of Arts & Sciences, and Daniel Morse, professor emeritus in UCSB's Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and Director of its Marine Biotechnology Center. The team also includes lead author Amanda Holt, a postdoctoral researcher formerly at UCSB and now at Penn, as well as Sanaz Vahidinia of NASA's Ames Research Center and Yakir Luc Gagnon of Duke University.

It was published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.