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Enhanced transport of nutrients powered by microscale flows of the self-spinning dinoflagellate Symbiodinium sp.
The metabolism of a living organism (e.g. bacteria, algae, zooplankton) requires a continuous uptake of nutrients from the surrounding environment. However, within local spatial scales, nutrients are quickly used up under dense concentrations of organisms. Here, we report that self-spinning dinoflag...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Company of Biologists Ltd
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6503948/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30952687 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.197947 |
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author | Zhu, Zheng Liu, Quan-Xing |
author_facet | Zhu, Zheng Liu, Quan-Xing |
author_sort | Zhu, Zheng |
collection | PubMed |
description | The metabolism of a living organism (e.g. bacteria, algae, zooplankton) requires a continuous uptake of nutrients from the surrounding environment. However, within local spatial scales, nutrients are quickly used up under dense concentrations of organisms. Here, we report that self-spinning dinoflagellates Symbiodinium sp. (clade E) generate a microscale flow that mitigates competition and enhances the uptake of nutrients from the surrounding environment. Our experimental and theoretical results reveal that this incessant active behavior enhances transport by approximately 80-fold when compared with Brownian motion in living fluids. We found that the tracer ensemble probability density function for displacement is time-dependent, but consists of a Gaussian core and robust exponential tails (so-called non-Gaussian diffusion). This can be explained by interactions of far-field Brownian motions and a near-field entrainment effect along with microscale flows. The contribution of exponential tails sharply increases with algal density, and saturates at a critical density, implying a trade-off between aggregated benefit and negative competition for the spatially self-organized cells. Our work thus shows that active motion and migration of aquatic algae play key roles in diffusive transport and should be included in theoretical and numerical models of physical and biogeochemical ecosystems. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6503948 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | The Company of Biologists Ltd |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65039482019-05-23 Enhanced transport of nutrients powered by microscale flows of the self-spinning dinoflagellate Symbiodinium sp. Zhu, Zheng Liu, Quan-Xing J Exp Biol Research Article The metabolism of a living organism (e.g. bacteria, algae, zooplankton) requires a continuous uptake of nutrients from the surrounding environment. However, within local spatial scales, nutrients are quickly used up under dense concentrations of organisms. Here, we report that self-spinning dinoflagellates Symbiodinium sp. (clade E) generate a microscale flow that mitigates competition and enhances the uptake of nutrients from the surrounding environment. Our experimental and theoretical results reveal that this incessant active behavior enhances transport by approximately 80-fold when compared with Brownian motion in living fluids. We found that the tracer ensemble probability density function for displacement is time-dependent, but consists of a Gaussian core and robust exponential tails (so-called non-Gaussian diffusion). This can be explained by interactions of far-field Brownian motions and a near-field entrainment effect along with microscale flows. The contribution of exponential tails sharply increases with algal density, and saturates at a critical density, implying a trade-off between aggregated benefit and negative competition for the spatially self-organized cells. Our work thus shows that active motion and migration of aquatic algae play key roles in diffusive transport and should be included in theoretical and numerical models of physical and biogeochemical ecosystems. The Company of Biologists Ltd 2019-04-15 2019-04-24 /pmc/articles/PMC6503948/ /pubmed/30952687 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.197947 Text en © 2019. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Zhu, Zheng Liu, Quan-Xing Enhanced transport of nutrients powered by microscale flows of the self-spinning dinoflagellate Symbiodinium sp. |
title | Enhanced transport of nutrients powered by microscale flows of the self-spinning dinoflagellate Symbiodinium sp. |
title_full | Enhanced transport of nutrients powered by microscale flows of the self-spinning dinoflagellate Symbiodinium sp. |
title_fullStr | Enhanced transport of nutrients powered by microscale flows of the self-spinning dinoflagellate Symbiodinium sp. |
title_full_unstemmed | Enhanced transport of nutrients powered by microscale flows of the self-spinning dinoflagellate Symbiodinium sp. |
title_short | Enhanced transport of nutrients powered by microscale flows of the self-spinning dinoflagellate Symbiodinium sp. |
title_sort | enhanced transport of nutrients powered by microscale flows of the self-spinning dinoflagellate symbiodinium sp. |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6503948/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30952687 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.197947 |
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