Alternative nutritional strategies in protists: symposium introduction and a review of freshwater protists that combine photosynthesis and heterotrophy

The alternative nutritional strategies in protists that were addressed during the symposium by that name at the 2010 annual meeting of the International Society of Protistologists and here in contributed papers, include a range of mechanisms that combine photosynthesis with heterotrophy in a single organism. Often called mixotrophy, these multiple trophic level combinations occur across a broad range of organisms and environments. Consequently, there is great variability in the physiological abilities and relative importance of phototrophy vs. phagotrophy and/or osmotrophy in mixotrophic protists. Recently, research papers addressing ecological questions about mixotrophy in marine systems have been more numerous than those that deal with freshwater systems, a trend that is probably partly due to a realization that many harmful algal blooms in coastal marine systems involve mixotrophic protists. After an introduction to the symposium presentations, recent studies of mixotrophy in freshwater systems are reviewed to encourage continuing research on their importance to inland waters.