The Effects of Cooling Conditions on the Behavior of Oxytricha bifaria (Ciliophora Hypotrichida)

Polymorphism, gigantism, and cannibalism, one stylonychid ciliate (Ciliophora, Hypotricha) to rule them all

The morphology, ontogenesis, and molecular phylogeny of the polymorphic and cannibalistic giant forming Tetmemena polymorpha n. sp., found in a brackish water sample in South Korea, were investigated. The present species has long been misidentified as "Oxytricha bifaria." The new investigation shows that the species produces three morphologically different morphs. The small morph is bacterivorous and characterized by its small body size and slim body and it is found only in the stationary and decline phases of the culture. The large morph has a wide body, larger oral apparatus, and feeds on small eukaryotes such as yeast cells and small ciliates. It divides very quickly and produces the other two morphs and found in the exponential phase of the cultures. The giant morph is characterized by its huge body and oral apparatus. It feeds on the small morph cells of the same species and other ciliates, and occurs together with the small morph. Phylogenetic analyses based on the 18S rRNA gene sequences show that the new species is placed in a sister subclade to that containing other Tetmemena sequences. Moreover, Tetmemena indica Bharti et al., 2019 nov. stat. is raised to species level based on the differences in the cyst morphology and the dorsal ciliature to the authoritative Tetmemena pustulata population.

Not-adaptive behavior of isotropically heated, inert populations of Oxytricha bifaria (Ciliophora, Stichotrichia)

The physiological effects on isotropically heated populations of Oxytricha bifaria cultured at 24 degrees C were investigated. At 34.6 degrees C ciliates became inert, and did not adaptively react to either cold or warm microgradients; they neither moved towards the favorable cold thermal source nor escaped from the unfavorable warm one. The inert oxytrichas were only able to perform the Side-Stepping Reaction (SSR) on the same spot. However, mobile ciliates at 31.6 degrees C reacted to the cold microgradient by immediately orienting themselves towards its source, without accelerating but reducing their SSR frequency. Moreover, in a warm microgradient such ciliates immediately increased their SSR frequency, then moved away from the thermal source. At 34.6 degrees C the behavior of ciliates was not-adaptive--not acting to guide the organisms to more favorable conditions--whereas at 31.6 degrees C it was still clearly adaptive. Therefore, the locomotory inertness of the oxytrichas at 34.6 degrees C was the result of thermal stress rather than their behavioral response to the environmental isotropy, in contrast to populations of the same species made inert at 9 degrees C.

Cold microgradients elicit adaptive behavior in isotropically cooled, inert populations of Oxytricha bifaria (Ciliophora, Hypotrichida)

To complete our investigations on the oriented behavioral response of isotropically cooled, inert populations of Oxytricha bifaria to a warm thermal gradient, their physiological potentialities under cold microgradient conditions arising at 8.5 degrees C were studied. We monitored the behavior of the experimental populations, both at the level of the passing cold wave front, and afterwards when the thermal gradient stabilized, evaluating (i) their distribution in general, (ii) their relative centroids, (iii) the percentage of both backward creeping and immobile ciliates, and (iv) the numerical indices and rates of their creeping tracks. At the arrival of the cold wave front, the oxytrichas react immediately to the thermal stimulus, creep backwards at very high velocity along uninterrupted linear tracks, and thus move away from the cooling source. No specific behavioral response was ever observed in the static microgradient conditions. At 8.5 degrees C, despite their inertness, the ciliates are still able to behave adaptively, reacting immediately and orientatedly, once a directional factor (the cold-repelling thermal gradient) arises in an isotropic environment. This is similar to their behavior in the symmetric warm attracting thermal gradient.

The effects of heating on the behaviour ofOxytricha bifaria(Ciliophora, Hypotrichida)

Experimental populations of the ciliate Oxytricha bifaria grown at 24°C were exposed to progressively higher temperatures in a thermally isotropic environment. Their behaviour was monitored and an ethogram was drawn for each step of the warming process (24, 29, and 34°C), as well as for three further periods of time after the temperature was brought back to the initial 24°C. As the temperature increased, (i) the percentage of mobile cells decreased (significantly at 34°C), (ii) their periods of immobilisation were more frequent; (iii) their average creeping velocity did not change; (iv) the radius of the arcs and the length of both the linear segments and the arcs decreased; (v) the frequency of the "side-stepping reaction" increased progressively, and (vi) it was often performed as bursts of reactions. Moreover, (vii) a new behavioural pattern, the "maximum-rotation reaction," was performed. When the ciliates were brought back to 24°C, their behavioural parameters, except for general mobility, did not return to normal values during the first 90 min. Linear heating of the experimental populations of O. bifaria induced nonlinear and time-stable effects on their behaviour (12 out of 17 parameters actually changed at 34°C).