title: Behaviour of Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae and Escherichia coli grown together in chemostat culture.
abstract: When Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae and Escherichia coli were grown together in chemostat culture damped oscillations in the population densities of the organisms occurred followed by a sudden increase in bacterial numbers and a concommitant decrease in the number of amoebae. After the system had come to equilibrium altering the dilution rate resulted in a monotonic change in the experimental variables to new steady state levels. A square wave increase in the concentration of limiting nutrient in the feed medium during the oscillatory phase of culture produced a sinusoidal response indistinguishable from that prior to the perturbation. The results are more complicated than those predicted by simple models of microbial predator-prey dynamics although they correspond most nearly to models which incorporate saturation kinetics.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002452:Cell Count; D003470:Culture Media; D004023:Dictyostelium / Q000254:growth & development*; D004463:Ecology; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000254:growth & development*; D008954:Models, Biological; D009235:Myxomycetes / Q000254:growth & development*; D010507:Periodicity; D011235:Predatory Behavior
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media