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Bacterial morphological plasticity refers to changes in the shape and size that bacterial cells undergo when they encounter stressful environments. Although bacteria have evolved complex molecular strategies to maintain their shape, many are able to alter their shape as a survival strategy in response to protist predators, antibiotics, the immune response, and other threats.
Winogradsky explained the perception of pleomorphic bacteria as bacteria progressing through different stages within a developmental cycle, thereby providing the fundamental structure for a theory of morphology based upon the concept of dynamic deviation from a morphological type, or biotype. Coxiella burnetii bacteria displaying pleomorphism
Spiral bacteria are another major bacterial cell morphology. [2] [30] [31] [32] Spiral bacteria can be sub-classified as spirilla, spirochetes, or vibrios based on the number of twists per cell, cell thickness, cell flexibility, and motility. [33] Bacteria are known to evolve specific traits to survive in their ideal environment. [34]
Phenotypic plasticity refers to some of the changes in an organism's behavior, morphology and physiology in response to a unique environment. [1] [2] Fundamental to the way in which organisms cope with environmental variation, phenotypic plasticity encompasses all types of environmentally induced changes (e.g. morphological, physiological, behavioural, phenological) that may or may not be ...
Behavioral plasticity is the change in an organism's behavior that results from exposure to stimuli, such as changing environmental conditions. [1] Behavior can change more rapidly in response to changes in internal or external stimuli than is the case for most morphological traits and many physiological traits.
The molecular basis for morphological plasticity and pleomorphism in more complex bacteria, however, is slowly being elucidated as well. [33] [8] Despite their morphological complexity, cyanobacteria contain all conserved and so far known bacterial morphogens. [8]
The formation of patterns in the growth of bacterial colonies has extensively been studied experimentally. Resulting morphologies appear to depend on the growth conditions. They include well known morphologies such as dense branched morphology (DBM) or diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA), but much complex patterns and temporal behaviour can be fou
The Baldwin effect has been confused with, and sometimes conflated with, a different evolutionary theory also based on phenotypic plasticity, C. H. Waddington's genetic assimilation. The Baldwin effect includes genetic accommodation, of which one type is genetic assimilation. [28]