Sensory optimization in bacteria: why are chemotaxis receptors clustered but other receptors arenb t

Bacteria swim toward food a process called chemotaxis by detecting temporal changes in their chemical environment and using this information to make a decision to swim straight or change direction The chemotaxis network of bacteria such as E coli is remarkable for its sensitivity to minute relative changes in chemical concentrations in the environment Much of this acute sensitivity can be traced to the collective behavior of teams of chemoreceptors on the cell