title: Motile chemosensory behaviour of phagotrophic protists: mechanisms for and efficiency in congregating at food patches.
abstract: Phagotrophic protists are capable of congregating at point sources of food within a few minutes, from distances of up to several cm in the case of ciliates, or several mm in the case of microflagellates. This is exemplified by four ciliate species and a heterotrophic flagellate. Congregation is accomplished by the combined effect of more than one type of chemosensory motile behaviour including "kinetic responses", "temporal-gradient sensing", and "helical klinotaxis". The results are discussed in terms of microscale patchiness in nature.
authors.affiliation: Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Helsingør, Denmark. mbltf@inet.uni2.dk
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fenchel
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Blackburn
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002633:Chemotaxis; D016798:Ciliophora / Q000502:physiology*; D056890:Eukaryota / Q000502:physiology*; D010587:Phagocytosis; D013997:Time Factors