This book is based on the lectures given at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Sensory Perception and Transduction in Aneural Organisms" held in Volterra (Pisa. Italy) from the third to the fourteenth of September. 1984. The Advanced Study Institute was planned as a high level course dealing with several aspects and problems of sensory perception and transduction of diverse environmental stimuli in aneural organisms. Scientists from different fields and cultural backgrounds were present at the meeting. both as lecturers and as students. The lectures and the discussions that followed represented a well integrated interdisci­ plinary approach to the questions considered. At the end of the Advanced Study Institute course. it was quite clear that. notwith­ standing the apparent heterogeneity of the topics dealt with. unifying concepts and ideas already existed, among the most important being the role of membranes and their physicochemical properties. All this should be reflected in the content of this book. We gratefully acknowledge the financial sponsorship of the Scientific Affairs Division of NATO (Brussels), that made both the Advanced Study Institute on "Sensory Perception and Transduction in Aneural Organisms" and this book possible. Finally. we are also indebted to Ms. Pat Parham Morgan who expertly retyped all the chapters of the book and Ms. Leslie Schmidt of Plenum Publishing Co. provided us valuable advice and suggestions on the preparation of this book. G. Colombetti F. Lenci P. S.

Inhalt

General Survey of Sensory Transduction in Aneural Organisms.- Physics of Bacterial Chemotaxis.- Biochemistry of Sensory Transduction in Bacteria.- Primary Molecular Events in Aneural Cell Photoreceptors.- Methods for the Microspectroscopic Investigation of Photoreceptive Structures.- Computer-Aide Studies of Photoinduced Behaviors.- Sensory Transduction in Halobacterium.- Color-Sensing by Phototactic Halobacterium halobium.- Behavioral Studies of Free-Swimming Photoresponsive Organisms.- Photosensing in Cyanobacteria.- Sensory Transduction in Euglena.- Mechanoresponses in Protozoa.- Signal Processing in the Transduction Mechanisms of Phototropism.- Photomorphogenesis in Microorganisms.- Mechanisms for the Measurement of Light Direction.- Phytochrome Regulation of Plant Development at the Whole Plant, Physiological, and Molecular Levels.- Molecular Mechanisms of Photoinduced Chloroplast Movements.- Temperature Sensing in Microorganisms.- Enzymatic Amplification Mechanism of Visual Transduction Signal in Retinal Rods.- Participants.