For a creature consisting of only one cell, the supports are giant. This living organism is among the largest mono -cell organisms, and it extends as long as the tip of the sharpening pen. But sometimes it has a difficult time to empty the swimming bacteria and microscopy that you eat to survive.
New research reveals that the supports, which are part of a group called Protiss, may address this challenge by eating “family style”. In a paper published on Monday in the magazine Nature PhysicsScientists have shared the discovery of the colonies of the supports can make the flow of water more quickly than around them, which helps them absorb more prey.
The new results indicate that although they lack nerve cells or minds, the supports can cooperate with each other.
“These single living creatures can do things that we suppose are limited to the most complex living organisms,” said Shashnka Sheikhd, a biologist at Emori University in Atlanta, who is the main author of the new paper. “It constitutes this high order, like what we do as human beings.”
Scientists believe that the ability of one -cell creature to form groups was an essential step that led to the final development of multi -cell life on Earth. The new results highlight the role played by material conditions – and the interaction between predators and prey – in this cellular cooperation.
In the wild, the supports are found near the surface of the ponds. The bastard of their bodies is saddened by anxious cilia. These cilia can fluctuate in a wave style to generate water currents sweeping prey.
Dr. Sheikhmar worked for the first time with the supports in the marine biological laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. To depict these currents in the laboratory, put drops of milk next to the pillars in a Petri dish and then see how the liquid flew under the microscope. “You see them creating these swirls around their mouths beautiful,” he said. He compared the movements with the universe to rotate from the “Night of the Stars” by Van Gogh.
When food is rare, the supports usually live alone. But when food is abundant, they often gather in intonation groups. Not a few work has been done to explore the reason for the formation of these colonies.
Dr. Shekhar and his colleagues examined the interaction between the pairs of stents. Using the microscope video clips, they measured the liquid dynamics, as they absorb two of the two invitations in the food molecules in Petri dish.
Videos revealed a strange style: the supports will be drifted towards each other before getting away, as if it were hunting with a magnet. “They are constantly revolving between” I love you, I love you. “
Then more analysis showed that the pairs of stents were often in an unequal union, as one of the protein generates a stronger flow than its neighbor. When they met, the resulting flow was the common force of both creatures. This means that the weaker supports have benefited from stronger.
Such dynamics between the supports inspire what Dr. Shekhar calls “mixed behavior”. When they meet in the colonies, the supports are constantly connected to each other to find stronger partners and increase their nutritional capabilities. This behavior increases the total flow speed of the colony, allowing the supports to walk in a larger and fast movement from the farthest, and increase the nutrients that the group members consume.
The formation of groups by one -cell organisms is seen to improve survival as an important early step in the development of pluralism. According to Lilliam Ratcliffe, an evolutionary biologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who did not participate in the new paper, groups of predators such as the supports that formed, one cell prey more vulnerable. To survive, the prey often cooperated.
“You choose the efficiency of improved nutrition by group predators such as Stentors for multi -cell selection in their prey,” said Dr. Ratcliffe. “If you are one cell, you are a dinner. But if you can form large groups of cells, you are now too big to eat.”
The new results highlight how material forces affect biological development.
“We are always thinking about genes and chemicals, but there is also a strong breeding of physics in developing a multi -cell life,” said Dr. Shekhar. “Even something like water flow can affect development.”