Magnetoreception in microorganisms and fungi |
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Authors: | Alexander Pazur Christine Schimek Paul Galland |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Biology I, Ludwig-Maximilian University München, D-80638 München, Germany;(2) Department of General Microbiology and Microbial Genetics, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, D-07743 Jena, Germany;(3) Faculty of Biology, Philipps-University Marburg, D-35032 Marburg, Germany |
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Abstract: | The ability to respond to magnetic fields is ubiquitous among the five kingdoms of organisms. Apart from the mechanisms that
are at work in bacterial magnetotaxis, none of the innumerable magnetobiological effects are as yet completely understood
in terms of their underlying physical principles. Physical theories on magnetoreception, which draw on classical electrodynamics
as well as on quantum electrodynamics, have greatly advanced during the past twenty years, and provide a basis for biological
experimentation. This review places major emphasis on theories, and magnetobiological effects that occur in response to weak
and moderate magnetic fields, and that are not related to magnetotaxis and magnetosomes. While knowledge relating to bacterial
magnetotaxis has advanced considerably during the past 27 years, the biology of other magnetic effects has remained largely
on a phenomenological level, a fact that is partly due to a lack of model organisms and model responses; and in great part
also to the circumstance that the biological community at large takes little notice of the field, and in particular of the
available physical theories. We review the known magnetobiological effects for bacteria, protists and fungi, and try to show
how the variegated empirical material could be approached in the framework of the available physical models. |
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Keywords: | magnetic field magnetoreception ion-cyclotron resonance magnetosomes quantum coherence radical-pair mechanism ecology climate change |
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