New research challenges a longstanding assumption about how unicellular organisms communicate and coordinate their behavior with one another. According to the study, published in Science Advances on Wednesday (December 15), at least one species of diatom can send and receive signals that previously went undetected by scientists.
Scientists assumed diatoms, which are single-celled phytoplankton, could only signal and communicate with one another by secreting infochemicals. The new study suggests that the pelagic diatom Pseudo-nitzschia delicatissima can also communicate with others through red and infrared autofluorescence triggered by exposure to sunlight. When exposed to lights of the right frequencies, diatoms in a lab synchronized their behavior, aligning vertically in the water and wobbling in time with one another, suggesting that they’re capable of coordinated social behavior.
To learn more, The Scientist spoke with Idan Tuval, a physicist-turned-microbial ecologist at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, about how he and his team ...
