Motile chemosensory behaviour of phagotrophic protists: mechanisms for and efficiency in congregating at food patches.
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.
Fenchel
T
T
Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Helsingør, Denmark. mbltf@inet.uni2.dk
Blackburn
N
N
D000818:Animals; D002633:Chemotaxis; D016798:Ciliophora / Q000502:physiology*; D056890:Eukaryota / Q000502:physiology*; D010587:Phagocytosis; D013997:Time Factors