Table I.
Definitions of key terms in manuscript. An alphabetical list of definitions for important terms that appear throughout the paper. Terms that end in -troph refer to a type of organism and terms that end in -trophy refer to a specific action taken by an organism. We define both mixoplankton and phago-mixotrophy because they are central to the paper, but for other terms we define the suffix that is most commonly used in the paper. However, both suffixes may be used for any appropriate term. Definitions for CM, eSNCM, GNCM, NCM, and pSNCM come from Mitra et al., (2016) and the definition for mixoplankton comes from Flynn et al., (2019)
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Autotroph | An organism capable of generating its own food |
| Auxotroph | An organism that cannot synthesize a biomolecule essential for their growth, i.e. vitamins |
| Constitutive mixoplankton (CM) | Mixoplankton that inherently have chloroplasts |
| Endosymbiotic specialist NCM (eSNCM) | Mixoplankton that harbor endosymbionts necessary for growth |
| Generalist NCM (GNCM) | Mixoplankton that can utilize chloroplasts acquired from a range of prey via kleptoplasty |
| Heterotroph | An organism that obtains nutrients from an outside, organic source for growth and reproduction |
| Kleptoplasty | The transient retention of functional prey plastids by a mixotrophic consumer |
| Mixoplankton | A protistan plankton that utilizes photoautotrophy and phagotrophy for growth |
| Osmotrophy | The act of taking up dissolved organic compounds via osmosis to acquire energy for growth |
| Phago-mixotrophy | The act of simultaneously utilizing photoautotrophy and phagotrophy for growth as opposed to osmo-mixotrophy, which is the act of simultaneously utilizing photoautotrophy and osmotrophy for growth |
| Non-constitutive mixoplankton (NCM) | Mixoplankton that lack their own chloroplasts |
| Phagotrophy | The act of ingesting prey via phagocytosis to acquire energy for growth |
| Photoautotrophy | The act of utilizing light to generate energy for growth, typically via photosynthesis |
| Plastidic specialist NCM (pSNCM) | Mixoplankton that can utilize chloroplasts acquired from select prey via kleptoplasty |