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Vol. 49 No. 3, 2010
Symbolic Analysis of Plankton Swimming Trajectories: Case
Study of Strobilidium sp.
(Protista) Helical Walking under Various Food Conditions
Pieter
Vandromme1,2,3,4, François G. Schmitt1,2,3, Sami
Souissi1,2,3, Edward J. Buskey5, J. Rudi Strickler6,
Cheng-Han Wu7, and Jiang-Shiou Hwang7,*
1Univ
Lille Nord de France, France
2USTL, LOG, F-62930 Wimereux, France
3CNRS, UMR 8187, F-62930 Wimereux, France
4Univ Paris 6, UMR 7093 LOV, Observatoire
Océanologique, BP 28, 06234 Villefranche-sur-mer, France
5University of Texas at Austin, Marine Science
Institute, 750 Channel View Drive, Port Aransas, TX 78373-5015 USA
6Great Lakes WATER Institute, University of Wisconsin
- Milwaukee, 600 E. Greenfield Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53204-2944 USA
7Institute of Marine Biology, National Taiwan Ocean
University, Keelung 202, Taiwan
Pieter
Vandromme, François G. Schmitt, Sami
Souissi, Edward J. Buskey, J. Rudi Strickler,
Cheng-Han Wu, and Jiang-Shiou Hwang (2010)
The swimming behavior of the ciliate Strobilidium sp. was recorded
using cinematographic techniques. A density of 20 ciliates/ml was
used under 4 experimental food conditions: 121, 625, 3025, and 15,125
cells/ml of the dinoflagellate Gymnodinium sp. In total, 100
trajectories per experiment were recorded and analyzed. We
classified this ciliate’s swimming trajectories into categories we
called “helix”, “non-helix”, and “break”. These swimming states
were identified using automated recognition of helices, based on values
of swimming trajectory angles. We performed a symbolic analysis
of the succession of swimming states which enabled discrimination
between food concentration experiments, and provided a more-complete
characterization of the swimming behavior. We found that helical
swimming patterns first increased with food concentration then
decreased with a corresponding increase in the numbers of breaks.
Non-helical motions were related to high food concentrations. We
further used these results to simulate a ciliate’s trajectories using a
symbolic dynamic model to generate a sequence series. Helices
were reconstructed using a model with 2 inputs: amplitude and
period. This study shows that a methodology developed to describe
copepod behavior can also be applied to characterize and simulate
ciliate helical and non-helical swimming dynamics.
Key words: Protista, Plankton behavior,
Swimming states, Symbolic dynamics, Simulation.
*Correspondence: Tel: 886-2-24622192 ext. 5304. Fax:
886-2-24629464. E-mail:Jshwang@mail.ntou.edu.tw
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