Three-dimensional tracking of small aquatic organisms using fluorescent nanoparticles.

ABSTRACT: Tracking techniques are vital for the understanding of the biology and ecology of organisms. While such techniques have provided important information on the movement and migration of large animals, such as mammals and birds, scientific advances in understanding the individual behaviour and interactions of small (mm-scale) organisms have been hampered by constraints, such as the sizes of existing tracking devices, in existing tracking methods. By combining biology, chemistry and physics we here present a method that allows three-dimensional (3D) tracking of individual mm-sized aquatic organisms. The method is based on in-vivo labelling of the organisms with fluorescent nanoparticles, so-called quantum dots, and tracking of the organisms in 3D via the quantum-dot fluorescence using a synchr

SUBMITTER: Ekvall MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3820599 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature