A taxis (plural taxes, ) is an innate behavioural response by an organism to a directional stimulus. A taxis differs from a tropism (turning response, often growth towards or away from a stimulus) in that the organism has motility and demonstrates guided movement towards or away from the stimulus . It also differs from a kinesis, a non-directional change in activity in response to a stimulus that results in the illusion of directed motion due to different rates of activity depending on stimulus intensity.

Examples

For example, flagellate protozoans of the genus Euglena move towards a light source. Here the directional stimulus is light, and the orientation movement is towards the light. This reaction or behaviour is a positive one to light and specifically termed "positive phototaxis", since phototaxis is a response to a light stimulus, and the organism is moving towards the stimulus. If the organism moves away from the stimulus, then the taxis is negative. Many types of taxis have been identified and named using prefixes to specify the stimulus that elicits the response. These include anemotaxis (stimulation by wind), barotaxis (pressure), chemotaxis (chemicals), galvanotaxis (electrical current), geotaxis (gravity), hydrotaxis (moisture), phototaxis (light), rheotaxis (fluid flow), thermotaxis (temperature changes) and thigmotaxis (physical contact).

Depending on the type of sensory organs present, taxes can be classified as klinotaxes, where an organism continuously samples the environment to determine the direction of a stimulus, tropotaxes, where bilateral sense organs are used to determine the stimulus direction, and telotaxes, which are similar to tropotaxes but where a single organ suffices to establish the orientation movement.

Geotaxis

Geotaxis is a response to the attraction due to gravity. The planktonic larvae of the king crab Lithodes aequispinus use a combination of positive phototaxis (movement towards the light) and negative geotaxis (upward movement) . Both positive and negative geotaxes are found in a variety of protozoans .

Phototaxis

main: phototaxis Phototaxis is the movement of an organism in response to light. This is advantageous for phototrophic organisms as they can orientate themselves most efficiently to receive light for photosynthesis. Two types of positive phototaxis are observed in prokaryotes. Scotophototaxis is observable as the movement of a bacterium out of the area illuminated by a microscope. Entering darkness signals the cell to reverse direction and reenter the light. A second type of phototaxis is true phototaxis, which is a directed movement up a gradient to an increasing amount of light.