Related papers: Emergent pattern formation in an interstitial biof…
The study of pattern emergence together with exploration of the exemplar Turing model is enjoying a renaissance both from theoretical and experimental perspective. Here, we implement a stability analysis of spatially dependent reaction…
Motility is a fundamental survival strategy of bacteria to navigate porous environments. Swimming cells thrive in quiescent wetlands and sediments at the bottom of the marine water column, where they mediate many essential biogeochemical…
Genetically engineered bacteria to increase the tumbling frequency of the run-and-tumble motion for the higher local bacterial density form visible stripe pattern composed of successive high and low density regions on an agar plate. We…
Microcolonies are aggregates of a few dozen to a few thousand cells exhibited by many bacteria. The formation of microcolonies is a crucial step towards the formation of more mature bacterial communities known as biofilms, but also marks a…
Bacteria can adjust the structure of colonies and biofilms to enhance their survival rate under external stress. Here, we explore the link between bacterial interaction forces and colony structure. We show that the activity of extracellular…
The enteric bacterium Proteus mirabilis, which is a pathogen that forms biofilms in vivo, can swarm over hard surfaces and form concentric ring patterns in colonies. Colony formation involves two distinct cell types: swarmer cells that…
Many bacterial species readily develop biofilms that act as a protective matrix against external challenge, e.g. from antimicrobial treatment. Therefore, biofilms are often responsible for persistent and recurring infections. Established…
Biofilms in porous media critically influence hydraulic properties in environmental and engineered systems. However, a mechanistic understanding of how microbial life controls permeability remains elusive. By combining microfluidics,…
Chemotactic bacteria have been observed to congregate into highly regular patterns. When the bacteria are placed in the center of a dish, a wave of bacteria can travel outward, leaving a regular pattern of spots or stripes in its wake.…
Spatial patterns arising spontaneously due to internal processes are ubiquitous in nature, varying from regular patterns of dryland vegetation to complex structures of bacterial colonies. Many of these patterns can be explained in the…
Cell walls define a cell shape in bacteria. They are rigid to resist large internal pressures, but remarkably plastic to adapt to a wide range of external forces and geometric constraints. Currently, it is unknown how bacteria maintain…
We study pattern formation in a chemotaxis model of bacteria and soil carbon dynamics as an example system where transient dynamics can give rise to pattern formation outside of Turing unstable regimes. We use a detailed analysis of the…
Bacterial attachment to a fluid interface can lead to the formation of a film with physicochemical properties that evolve with time. We study the time evolution of interface (micro)mechanics for interfaces between oil and bacterial…
We present a generic mechanism by which reproducing microorganisms, with a diffusivity that depends on the local population density, can form stable patterns. It is known that a decrease of swimming speed with density can promote separation…
A hydrostatically stressed soft elastic film circumvents the imposed constraint by undergoing a morphological instability, the wavelength of which is dictated by the minimization of the surface and the elastic strain energies of the film.…
We investigate a mathematical model for a bacterial population in a continuously stirred tank reactor with wall attachment. The model couples a free-boundary value problem for substrate diffusion in the one-dimensional biofilm with a system…
We study the behaviour of interacting self-propelled particles, whose self-propulsion speed decreases with their local density. By combining direct simulations of the microscopic model with an analysis of the hydrodynamic equations obtained…
Bacterial growth and division generally occur by the process known as binary fission, in which the cells grow polarly until they divide into two daughter cells. Although this process is affected by factors that introduce stochastic…
In this fluid dynamics video we explore the nature and causes of the spontaneous ordering that emerges in a dense bacterial suspension under confinement. Recent experiments with B. Subtilis confined within small flattened drops show that…
Biofilms are microbial collectives that occupy a diverse array of surfaces. The function and evolution of biofilms are strongly influenced by the spatial arrangement of different strains and species within them, but how spatiotemporal…