CAA: Food Uptake in Marine Mixotrophic Protists

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This study will develop an innovative approach for the measurement of food uptake in marine mixotrophic dinoflagellates, with a long term research goal of contributing to the understanding of regulation and significance of mixotrophic processes in marine food webs. The objectives of this study are: 1. To use fluorescent membrane markers to label food vacuoles in live marine phagocytic and myzocytotic dinoflagellates as a measure of food uptake. 2. To relate the degree of fluorescence to the degree of food uptake. 3. To demonstrate the usefulness of such a method in detecting as well as measuring phagocytosis and myzocytosis in cultured dinoflagellates and in whole marine protist communities. This novel approach is independent of prey selection, prey density and the type of feeding protists.