T. Fenchel et N. Blackburn, Motile chemosensory behaviour of phagotrophic protists: Mechanisms for andefficiency in congregating at food patches, PROTIST, 150(3), 1999, pp. 325-336
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 cil
iates, or several mm in the case of microflagellates. This is exemplified b
y four ciliate species and a heterotrophic flagellate. Congregation is acco
mplished by the combined effect of more than one type of chemosensory motil
e behaviour including "kinetic responses", "temporal-gradient sensing", and
"helical klinotaxis". The results are discussed in terms of microscale pat
chiness in nature.