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Kinesis (biology)
Kinesis, like a taxis or tropism, is a movement or activity of a cell or an organism in response to a stimulus (such as gas exposure, light intensity or ambient temperature). Unlike taxis, the response to the stimulus provided is non-directional. The animal does not move toward or away from the stimulus but moves at either a slow or fast rate depending on its "comfort zone." In this case, a fast movement (non-random) means that the animal is searching for its comfort zone while a slow movement indicates that it has found it. Types There are two main types of kineses, both resulting in aggregations. However, the stimulus does not act to attract or repel individuals. Orthokinesis: in which the speed of movement of the individual is dependent upon the stimulus intensity. For example, the locomotion of the collembola, ''Orchesella cincta'', in relation to water. With increased water saturation in the soil there is an increase in the direction of its movement towards the aimed place. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oniscus Asellus - Male Front 2 (aka)
''Oniscus'' is a genus of woodlice. It comprises five species, three of which are confined to northwestern Iberia (''Oniscus ancarensis'', '' O. galicianus'' and '' O. lusitanicus''), one to the Pyrenees (''Oniscus simonii''), and one of which, '' O. asellus'', is widespread across Europe and has been introduced to the Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ... . References Woodlice Isopod genera Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{isopod-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reaction–diffusion System
Reaction–diffusion systems are mathematical models which correspond to several physical phenomena. The most common is the change in space and time of the concentration of one or more chemical substances: local chemical reactions in which the substances are transformed into each other, and diffusion which causes the substances to spread out over a surface in space. Reaction–diffusion systems are naturally applied in chemistry. However, the system can also describe dynamical processes of non-chemical nature. Examples are found in biology, geology and physics (neutron diffusion theory) and ecology. Mathematically, reaction–diffusion systems take the form of semi-linear parabolic partial differential equations. They can be represented in the general form :\partial_t \boldsymbol = \underline \,\nabla^2 \boldsymbol + \boldsymbol(\boldsymbol), where represents the unknown vector function, is a diagonal matrix of diffusion coefficients, and accounts for all local reactions. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical and physical functions in a living system. According to the classes of organisms, the field can be divided into medical physiology, animal physiology, plant physiology, cell physiology, and comparative physiology. Central to physiological functioning are biophysical and biochemical processes, homeostatic control mechanisms, and communication between cells. ''Physiological state'' is the condition of normal function. In contrast, ''pathological state'' refers to abnormal conditions, including human diseases. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for exceptional scientific achievements in physiology related to the field of medicine. Foundations Cells Although there are differ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rapid Plant Movement
Rapid plant movement encompasses plant movements, movement in plant structures occurring over a very short period, usually under one second. For example, the Venus flytrap closes its trap in about 100 milliseconds. The traps of Utricularia are much faster, closing in about 0.5 milliseconds. The dogwood bunchberry's flower opens its petals and fires pollen in less than 0.5 milliseconds. The record is currently held by the white mulberry tree, with flower movement taking 25 microseconds, as pollen is catapulted from the stamens at velocities in excess of half the speed of sound—near the theoretical physical limits for movements in plants.Taylor, P.E., G. Card, J. House, M. H. Dickinson & R.C. Flagan 2006. High-speed pollen release in the white mulberry tree, ''Morus alba'' L.. ''Sexual Plant Reproduction'' 19(1): 19–24. These rapid plant movements differ from the more common, but much slower "growth-movements" of plants, called tropisms. Tropisms encompass movements that lead to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Photokinesis
Photokinesis is a change in the velocity of movement of an organism as a result of changes in light intensity. The alteration in speed is independent of the direction from which the light is shining. Photokinesis is described as positive if the velocity of travel is greater with an increase in light intensity and negative if the velocity is slower. If a group of organisms with a positive photokinetic response is swimming in a partially shaded environment, there will be fewer organisms per unit of volume in the sunlit portion than in the shaded parts. This may be beneficial for the organisms if it is unfavourable to their predators, or it may be propitious to them in their quest for prey. In photosynthetic prokaryotes, the mechanism for photokinesis appears to be an energetic process. In cyanobacteria, for example, an increase in illumination results in an increase of photophosphorylation which enables an increase in metabolic activity. However the behaviour is also found among e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nastic Movements
Nastic movements are non-directional responses to stimuli (e.g. temperature, humidity, light irradiance), and are usually associated with plants. The movement can be due to changes in turgor. Decrease in turgor pressure causes shrinkage while increase in turgor pressure brings about swelling. Nastic movements differ from tropic movements in that the direction of tropic responses depends on the direction of the stimulus, whereas the direction of nastic movements is independent of the stimulus's position. The tropic movement is growth movement but nastic movement may or may not be growth movement. The rate or frequency of these responses increases as intensity of the stimulus increases. An example of such a response is the opening and closing of flowers (photonastic response), movement of euglena, chlamydomonas towards the source of light. They are named with the suffix "-nasty" and have prefixes that depend on the stimuli: * Epinasty: downward-bending from growth at the top, for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diffusion
Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical potential. It is possible to diffuse "uphill" from a region of lower concentration to a region of higher concentration, like in spinodal decomposition. The concept of diffusion is widely used in many fields, including physics (particle diffusion), chemistry, biology, sociology, economics, and finance (diffusion of people, ideas, and price values). The central idea of diffusion, however, is common to all of these: a substance or collection undergoing diffusion spreads out from a point or location at which there is a higher concentration of that substance or collection. A gradient is the change in the value of a quantity, for example, concentration, pressure, or temperature with the change in another variable, usually distance. A change in c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cytokinesis
Cytokinesis () is the part of the cell division process during which the cytoplasm of a single eukaryotic cell divides into two daughter cells. Cytoplasmic division begins during or after the late stages of nuclear division in mitosis and meiosis. During cytokinesis the spindle apparatus partitions and transports duplicated chromatids into the cytoplasm of the separating daughter cells. It thereby ensures that chromosome number and complement are maintained from one generation to the next and that, except in special cases, the daughter cells will be functional copies of the parent cell. After the completion of the telophase and cytokinesis, each daughter cell enters the interphase of the cell cycle. Particular functions demand various deviations from the process of symmetrical cytokinesis; for example in oogenesis in animals the ovum takes almost all the cytoplasm and organelles. This leaves very little for the resulting polar bodies, which in most species die without function, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cranial Kinesis
Cranial kinesis is the term for significant movement of skull bones relative to each other in addition to movement at the joint between the upper and lower jaw. It is usually taken to mean relative movement between the upper jaw and the braincase. Most vertebrates have some form of kinetic skull. Cranial kinesis, or lack thereof, is usually linked to feeding. Animals which must exert powerful bite forces, such as crocodiles, often have rigid skulls with little or no kinesis, for maximum strength. Animals which swallow large prey whole (snakes), which grip awkwardly shaped food items (parrots eating nuts), or, most often, which feed in the water via suction feeding often have very kinetic skulls, frequently with numerous mobile joints. In the case of mammals, which have akinetic skulls (except for perhaps hares), the lack of kinesis is most likely to be related to the secondary palate, which prevents relative movement. This in turn is a consequence of the need to be able to create ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemokinesis
Chemokinesis is chemically prompted kinesis, a motile response of unicellular prokaryotic or eukaryotic organisms to chemicals that cause the cell to make some kind of change in their migratory/swimming behaviour. Changes involve an increase or decrease of speed, alterations of amplitude or frequency of motile character, or direction of migration. However, in contrast to chemotaxis, chemokinesis has a random, non-vectorial moiety, in general. Due to the random character, techniques dedicated to evaluate chemokinesis are partly different from methods used in chemotaxis research. One of the most valuable ways to measure chemokinesis is computer-assisted (see, e.g., Image J) checker-board analysis, which provides data about migration of identical cells, whereas, in Protozoa (e.g., Tetrahymena ''Tetrahymena'', a Unicellular organism, unicellular eukaryote, is a genus of free-living ciliates. The genus Tetrahymena is the most widely studied member of its phylum. It can produce, st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brownian Motion
Brownian motion, or pedesis (from grc, πήδησις "leaping"), is the random motion of particles suspended in a medium (a liquid or a gas). This pattern of motion typically consists of random fluctuations in a particle's position inside a fluid sub-domain, followed by a relocation to another sub-domain. Each relocation is followed by more fluctuations within the new closed volume. This pattern describes a fluid at thermal equilibrium, defined by a given temperature. Within such a fluid, there exists no preferential direction of flow (as in transport phenomena). More specifically, the fluid's overall linear and angular momenta remain null over time. The kinetic energies of the molecular Brownian motions, together with those of molecular rotations and vibrations, sum up to the caloric component of a fluid's internal energy (the equipartition theorem). This motion is named after the botanist Robert Brown, who first described the phenomenon in 1827, while looking throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allee Effect
The Allee effect is a phenomenon in biology characterized by a correlation between population size or density and the mean individual fitness (often measured as ''per capita'' population growth rate) of a population or species. History and background Although the concept of Allee effect had no title at the time, it was first described in the 1930s by its namesake, Warder Clyde Allee. Through experimental studies, Allee was able to demonstrate that goldfish have a greater survival rate when there are more individuals within the tank. This led him to conclude that aggregation can improve the survival rate of individuals, and that cooperation may be crucial in the overall evolution of social structure. The term "Allee principle" was introduced in the 1950s, a time when the field of ecology was heavily focused on the role of competition among and within species. The classical view of population dynamics stated that due to competition for resources, a population will experience a reduc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
