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Feeding spectra and pseudoconoid structure in predatory alveolate flagellates

  • Biology, Morphology, and Systematics of Hydrobionts
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Abstract

It is revealed experimentally that predatory alveolate flagellates Colpodella angusta Simpson et Patterson, C. edax Simpson et Patterson, and Voromonas pontica (Mylnikov, 2000) Cavalier-Smith, 2004 eat its prey by sucking out the insides through the front of its own body (rostrum). Feeding spectra of these predators include bodonids, percolomonads and colorless chrysomonads, while colorless euglenoids, cryptomonads, ciliates and naked amoebas are unsuitable food for them. Predators’ rostrum contains a microtubular structure (pseudoconoid) complemented by microtubular bands, micronemas or rhoptries. It is shown that the pseudoconoid begins near the kinetosomes of flagella and passes along the flagellate pocket into the rostrum. The pseudoconoid forms an unlocked cone in Colpodella angusta and Voromonas pontica, while, in Colpodella edax, it coils significantly without forming a cone. The similarity between the pseudoconoid and associated structures of predatory flagellates with analogous structures in other colpodellids, percinzoids, dinoflagellates and sporozoans is discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Biology of Inland Waters, Russian Academy of Sciences, Borok, Yaroslavl oblast, 152742, Russia

    A. P. Mylnikov & Z. M. Mylnikova

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  1. A. P. Mylnikov
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  2. Z. M. Mylnikova
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Correspondence to A. P. Mylnikov.

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Original Russian Text © A.P. Mylnikov, Z.M. Mylnikova, 2008, published in Biologiya Vnutrennikh Vod, No. 3, 2008, pp. 14–20.

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Mylnikov, A.P., Mylnikova, Z.M. Feeding spectra and pseudoconoid structure in predatory alveolate flagellates. Inland Water Biol 1, 210–216 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1995082908030036

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