Diverse animal species exhibit highly stereotyped behavioral actions and locomotor
sequences as they explore their natural environments. In many such cases, the neural basis …

Effective organismal behavior responds appropriately to changes in the surrounding
environment. Attaining this delicate balance of sensitivity and stability is a hallmark of the …

Living organisms routinely navigate their surroundings in search of better conditions, more
food, or to avoid predators. Typically, animals do so by integrating sensory cues from the …

Rapid transduction of sensory stimulation to action is essential for an animal to survive. To
this end, most animals use the sub-second excitable and multistable dynamics of a …

Ciliated surfaces harbouring synchronously beating cilia can generate fluid flow or drive
locomotion. In ciliary swimmers, ciliary beating, arrests, and changes in beat frequency are …

Living creatures exhibit a remarkable diversity of locomotion mechanisms, evolving
structures specialized for interacting with their environment. In the vast majority of cases …

Many single-celled protists use rapid morphology changes to perform fast animal-like
behaviors. To understand how such behaviors are encoded, we analyzed the hunting …

Galvanotaxis describes the functional response of organisms to electric fields. In ciliates, the
electric field influences the electrophysiology, and thus, the cilia beat dynamics. This leads …

Motile cilia are slender, hair-like cellular appendages that spontaneously oscillate under the
action of internal molecular motors and are typically found in dense arrays. These active …

Place a drop of pond water under the microscope, and you will likely find an ocean of
extraordinary and diverse single-celled organisms called ciliates. This remarkable group of …