Sorting choanoflagellates

In freshwater environments, as well as in oceans, environmental conditions are in constant fluctuation. Some heterotrophic plankton must adapt their swimming behavior in order to survive under these conditions. In the case of the choanoflagellate, the closest animal ancestor, the ability to forage for food is given not only by its single flagellum, but also by its differentiation between fast and slow swimmers. The understanding of how these cells with different strategies to swim search for food can give us a better insight into how eukaryotes respond to different stimuli. In this work, we have designed a microfluidic device that sorts choanoflagellates by their speed. The optimal geometry was found by a numerical model using the experimentally determined motilities of each swimmer type.