Ingestion and assimilation by marine protists fed on bacteria labeled with radioactive thymidine and leucine...

A procedure has been developed for preparing living bacteria, quantitatively labeled with (3)H-thymidine and (14)C-leucine, for short-term grazing experiments. The negligible rate of accumulation in protozoan macromolecules of moieties of bacterial macromolecules labeled with (3)H compared with moieties labeled with (14)C permits estimation of the consumption, digestion, and assimilation of prey biomass in protists without separating them from bacteria. The principles of this method are described, and the results of its application in examples of grazing by the ciliates Euplotes and Uronema and the flagellate Pteridomonas on the bacterium Vibrio are outlined.