Article: On the strategy of "eating your competitor": a mathematical analysis of algal mixotrophy.

INTRODUCTION

In most of our idealized concepts of carbon flow through ecosystem food webs, we tend to separate profoundly between the photosynthetic/osmotrophic primary producers and the heterotrophic/phagotrophic organisms in the predatory food chain. In the microbial world, this basic division is not necessarily an adequate description of reality since there are protists known to combine these abilities. These so-called mixotrophic protists (see review by Riemann et al. 1995) represent a twin challenge: not only do we need to establish their importance in terms of numbers and activity in different environments, but how do we incorporate such a mixed strategy in our ...

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