sentences:  In the absence of food, "E. crispata" will invest energy trying to find food rather than slowing down and conserving energy.Although it hasn’t been exclusively studied for this organism, one possibility of the mechanism behind long-term retention is due to the amount of extracellular components which prolong chloroplast activity, depending on the species of algae eaten.As "E. crispata" continues to consume food, the chloroplasts ingested will continuously replace older chloroplasts while food is available.