stylistic:style_transfer, linguistic:translation
Nutritional strategies

Three nutritional strategies are seen in dinoflagellates: phototrophy, mixotrophy, and heterotrophy. Phototrophs can be photoautotrophs or auxotrophs. Mixotrophic dinoflagellates are photosynthetically active, but are also heterotrophic. Facultative mixotrophs, in which autotrophy or heterotrophy is sufficient for nutrition, are classified as amphitrophic. If both forms are required, the organisms are mixotrophic sensu stricto. Some free-living dinoflagellates do not have chloroplasts, but host a phototrophic endosymbiont. A few dinoflagellates may use alien chloroplasts (cleptochloroplasts), obtained from food (kleptoplasty). Some dinoflagellates may feed on other organisms as predators or parasites.

Food inclusions contain bacteria, bluegreen algae, diatoms, ciliates, and other dinoflagellates.

Mechanisms of capture and ingestion in dinoflagellates are quite diverse. Several dinoflagellates, both thecate (e.g. Ceratium hirundinella, Peridinium globulus) and nonthecate (e.g. Oxyrrhis marina, Gymnodinium sp. and Kofoidinium spp.), draw prey to the sulcal region of the cell (either via water currents set up by the flagella or via pseudopodial extensions) and ingest the prey through the sulcus. In several Protoperidinium spp., e.g. P. conicum, a large feeding veil—a pseudopod called the pallium—is extruded to capture prey which is subsequently digested extracellularly (= pallium-feeding). Oblea, Zygabikodinium, and Diplopsalis are the only other dinoflagellate genera known to use this particular feeding mechanism. Katodinium (Gymnodinium) fungiforme, commonly found as a contaminant in algal or ciliate cultures, feeds by attaching to its prey and ingesting prey cytoplasm through an extensible peduncle. Two related species, polykrikos kofoidii and neatodinium, shoots out a harpoon-like organelle to capture prey.

Some mixotrophic dinoflagellates are able to produce neurotoxins that have anti-grazing effects on larger copepods and enhance the ability of the dinoflagellate to prey upon larger copepods. Toxic strains of K. veneficum produce karlotoxin that kills predators who ingest them, thus reducing predatory populations and allowing blooms of both toxic and non-toxic strains of K. veneficum. Further, the production of karlotoxin enhances the predatory ability of K. veneficum by immobilizing its larger prey. K. arminger are more inclined to prey upon copepods by releasing a potent neurotoxin that immobilizes its prey upon contact. When K. arminger are present in large enough quantities, they are able to cull whole populations of its copepods prey.

The feeding mechanisms of the oceanic dinoflagellates remain unknown, although pseudopodial extensions were observed in Podolampas bipes.