Investigations of the Behavior of Paramecium Aurelia: III. The Effect of the Presence and Absence of Light on the Occurrence of a Response

Modification of Sea Anemone Behavior by Symbiotic Zooxanthellae: Phototaxis

“…positive phototaxis, and the action spectrum of the response corresponds to the absorption spectrum of chlorophyll (Engelmann, 1882). P. bursaria without algal symbionts does not show positive phototaxis (Siegel, 1960), nor do any of the other, non-symbiotic species of Paramecium, show directed light responses (Gelber, 1956;Halldal, 1964). direct sunlight into shade, but they did not establish whether the anemones respond positively to light of lower intensity.…”

Discrimination Learning in Paramecia (P. caudatum)

“…Other relatively recent experiments that have dealt with this issue are those of Gelber (1952Gelber ( , 1956Gelber ( , 1957Gelber ( , 1958Gelber ( , 1962aGelber ( , 1962b, Jensen (1957aJensen ( , 1957b, and Katz and Deterline (1958). Gelber reported successful conditioned approach behavior to a sterile platinum wire inserted into a reservoir containing paramecia after the paramecia had received training with the wire coated with food (bacteria).…”

Integrative Neuroscience ofParamecium, a “Swimming Neuron”

“…Unfortunately, as reviewed by Applewhite (1979) , many of those studies are difficult to interpret as they lack appropriate controls or observations. In a series of papers ( Gelber, 1952 , 1956 , 1957 , 1958 , 1962a , b ), Gelber showed an apparent reinforcement of behavior with a food reward (see ( Gershman et al, 2021 ) for a recent commentary). A platinum wire is lowered repeatedly into a depression slide with paramecia.…”

“…What might be the stimulus? Gelber (1956) noted that the behavior was not observed when paramecia were tested in the dark, suggesting that perhaps paramecia, with permission developed an attraction to a reflection or shadow cast by the wire.…”