Researchers built a simulation of how heliozoans — single-celled predators — catch prey with their ray-like arms, called axopods. The model predicts capture rates, energy costs, and cell division time, and its predictions match real measurements of arm length, number, and growth.
This is the first quantitative look at how one hunting structure affects the full fitness of a single-celled organism — both what it gains in food and what it pays in energy. The approach can extend to other microbial hunters, helping explain how very different feeding tools evolved across the tree of life.
✦ Even for one cell, survival is a trade-off between catching dinner and paying for the tools.