The entire Internet is filled with articles on the ciliates. While information about trumpeters is very poor, it is not often possible to get acquainted with them, apart from the fact that they are one of the most typical inhabitants of water bodies.
The infusoria trumpeter is sometimes mistaken for a scotch or rotifers. The stories of knowledgeable people seemed unlike the truth, few could believe that there exist such wondrous protozoa in the world.
origin of name
The name of this ciliator speaks for itself. It came from her appearance. With the shape of its body, the ciliator stent resembles a gramophone tube or speaker. It resembles a smoothly expanding stalk, which at the end goes to the bell just like a certain wind instrument. However, an infusoria is only when calm. If you disturb her, she, thanks to her muscle fibers, will immediately become like a ball.
Freshwater infusoria trumpeters represent the family “Trumpeters”, in which the genus Stentor (Trumpeter) is located. The name Stentor is found in ancient Greek myths. This is a herald with a strong voice, he was used to announce the king’s decrees.
Stentor: Short Description
In short, what are stentors, these are floating and sedentary ciliates. Infusoria trumpeter (brief description): the lower part is a contractible elongated stalk, which has the ability to attach the infusoria to objects under water. This action occurs with the help of mucus secreted by the stentors.
Anticipating the danger, the stem of the trumpeter begins to shrink with speed, at which time his whole body contracts. To save his life, the infusorian trumpeter can be reduced in a matter of fractions of a second by a third of the length! It returns to its initial position more slowly, this time is 10 seconds. Contraction is facilitated by the presence of muscle fibers within the cell.
In addition, it has its own remarkable security ability. The infusoria trumpeter has innumerable small holes on its body, in which rods with dense tips containing poison are hidden. An individual affected by such a weapon immediately paralyzes, in the worst case, dies.
Ciliates spread with great speed. The explanation is unpretentiousness, as well as the ease of movement of its rounded cysts by the wind, waterfowl, insects and other living organisms. Cysts form at temperatures below 0 degrees C.
Appearance
The body of the stentor has a characteristic funnel shape, its front end is expanded in the form of a bell. There is a peristomal field in it, along the outer edge of which long cilia merge to form membrane membranes located around the oral cavity.
Small cilia under the membrane cover the entire body of the ciliates in longitudinal rows. There are species whose body has only their inherent coloring: blue or blue trumpeter and green trumpeter.
Ciliates come in sizes from 1.2 mm to 3 mm. Their appearance may be as follows:
• Movable.
• Sedentary.
• Colonial.
• Single.
• Shape-changing cells.
• Do not change the shape of the cell.
On top of the cell is covered with endoplasm, which has an iron-like appearance, and a fairly dense membrane.
Infusoria trumpeter: taxonomy
If we consider trumpeters from the point of view of systematics, then these protozoa are in the detachment of different-sized ciliates. Like close relatives, cilia of two different types are on their body - short and long.
Short cilia, which are intended for swimming, the stentor's body is covered more evenly. Long cilia are located near the mouth, closely adjacent to one another. They serve to direct water to the mouth opening. No difference between them was noticed, except in length, their structure is the same.
Food
The simplest are characteristic of all life functions, including nutrition. What they eat and how digestion occurs at the stentor is a very interesting question. The infusoria trumpeter considers bacteria as its main food. Along with them, small protozoa, planktonic algae and other particles in the water are also food objects.
Usually blowers, violating the laws of mechanics, swim with the extended end of the body forward. This slow movement helps them to successfully capture the intended prey. Small food enters through the mouth opening further into the tube-like pharynx. Residues after digestion come out through the powder.
Infusoria is a very gluttonous creature, it always has a mouth open, it constantly eats. Only during the breeding season does this process stop. Most of them are considered predators.
Lifestyle
The main regulatory center of the stenter is the nucleus. They are designed so that all processes in the cell can proceed correctly and violations are quickly corrected. The infusoria trumpeter has an amazing ability to quickly bring his body to its original form after damage. Even when it is cut into several parts, each of them after a while turns into a small stenter, and then, intensively eating, gets its original size.
The only thing needed for this is the presence in the remaining part of the macronucleus.
When you take a drop of water from a pond with fallen leaves and place it under a microscope, you will have the opportunity to observe the life of such small representatives of the world of microscopic animals, which is very interesting.
Stentor: internal structure
The stentor has one contractile vacuole. It consists of a reservoir and drive channels. A characteristic feature that the structure of the ciliates represents is the large nucleus of the macronucleus. Next to it are several small micronuclei.
The trumpeter also has a small core, sometimes there are several. The structure of the ciliates is as follows: a digestive vacuole being formed, cilia, crystals, a mouth, a digestive vacuole, a place for removing food debris (powder), a core and a nucleolus, a contractile vacuole.
Infusoria trumpeter: reproduction
Stentors are characterized by asexual reproduction. It is carried out by multiple transverse division, bisection or budding, which tend to occur in a free-moving state.
With asexual reproduction, all nuclei are divided; this process is repeated at the trumpeter two to three times a week at different intervals. The pace of this type of breeding depends on various reasons, this is, first of all, environmental conditions: temperature, amount of food, etc.
Micronucleus division occurs mitonically. The macronucleus is peculiarly divided and is characterized by a doubling of DNA. When dividing the ciliates, some cytoplasmic organoids can be observed. Usually they relate to daughter individuals in which new cilia and mouth openings are re-formed.
The infusoria begins to eat and grow vigorously, after which it multiplies again. Scientists have conducted a large number of experiments to answer the question of how long these animals can breed asexually.
Experiments have shown that after several generations in the life cycle of ciliates, the sexual process of reproduction or conjugation must necessarily occur, during which two individuals come into contact with each other by the abdomen. At the junction, the membrane dissolves, forming a cytoplasmic bridge. Macronuclei begin to break down and divide into 4 nuclei micronuclei. Three of them are completely destroyed, and in the fourth there is a division in half. The result is the formation of the male and female nucleus in each ciliator.
Thus, the sexual process of reproduction does not affect the increase in the number of stentors. It only contributes to the updating of hereditary properties and the emergence of new combinations of genetic information.
