Chemotaxis behavioral mechanisms

Table 2 summarizes the behavioral mechanisms of chemotaxis in the systems reviewed in this book. If these systems faithfully represent the mechanisms of chemotaxis in nature, it appears that prokaryotes mainly employ trial-and-error chemotaxis mechanisms— the phobic response and klinokinesis, defined in Table 2 and, in more detail, in Chapter 1. In contrast, eukaryotes appear to primarily employ the more direct mechanism—modulation of the direction of movement according to the stimulant gradient. A number of non-mutually-exclusive reasons may account for this difference. First, the mechanisms employed by bacteria... 

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