Related papers: Phenotypes of vascular flow networks
Biological transport networks are highly optimized structures that ensure power-efficient distribution of fluids across various domains, including animal vasculature and plant venation. Theoretically, these networks can be described as…
Distribution networks -- from vasculature to urban transportation systems -- are prevalent in both the natural and consumer worlds. These systems are intrinsically physical in composition and are embedded into real space, properties that…
A dynamic self-organized morphology is the hallmark of network-shaped organisms like slime moulds and fungi. Organisms continuously re-organize their flexible, undifferentiated body plans to forage for food. Among these organisms the slime…
Physarum polycephalum is an acellular slime mould that grows as a highly adaptive network of veins filled with protoplasm. As it forages, Physarum dynamically rearranges its network structure as a response to local stimuli information,…
The ability to reroute and control flow is vital to the function of venation networks across a wide range of organisms. By modifying individual edges in these networks, either by adjusting edge conductances or creating and destroying edges,…
A fundamental question regarding biological transport networks is the interplay between the network development or reorganization and the flows it carries. We use Physarum polycephalum, a true slime mould with a transport network which…
Active biological flow networks pervade nature and span a wide range of scales, from arterial blood vessels and bronchial mucus transport in humans to bacterial flow through porous media or plasmodial shuttle streaming in slime molds.…
Transport networks are crucial to the functioning of natural and technological systems. Nature features transport networks that are adaptive over a vast range of parameters, thus providing an impressive level of robustness in supply.…
The metabolic networks are very well characterized for a large set of organisms, a unique case in within the large-scale biological networks. For this reason they provide a a very interesting framework for the construction of analytically…
Optimization of fluid transport in the slime mold Physarum polycephalum has been the subject of several modeling efforts in recent literature. Existing models assume that the tube adaptation mechanism in P. polycephalum's tubular network is…
Reinforced elastic sheets surround us in daily life, from concrete shell buildings to biological structures such as the arthropod exoskeleton or the venation network of dicotyledonous plant leaves. Natural structures are often highly…
Transport networks are crucial to the functioning of natural systems and technological infrastructures. For flow networks in many scenarios, such as rivers or blood vessels, acyclic networks (i.e., trees) are optimal structures when…
The leaves of angiosperms contain highly complex venation networks consisting of recursively nested, hierarchically organized loops. We describe a new phenotypic trait of reticulate vascular networks based on the topology of the nested…
The structure of networks that provide optimal transport properties has been investigated in a variety of contexts. While many different formulations of this problem have been considered, it is recurrently found that optimal networks are…
The structure of flow networks determines their function under normal conditions as well as their response to perturbative damage. Brain vasculature often experiences transient or permanent occlusions in the finest vessels, but it is not…
Systems as diverse as genetic networks or the world wide web are best described as networks with complex topology. A common property of many large networks is that the vertex connectivities follow a scale-free power-law distribution. This…
In the realm of biological flow networks, the ability to dynamically adjust to varying demands is paramount. Drawing inspiration from the remarkable adaptability of Physarum polycephalum, we present a novel physical mechanism tailored to…
The true slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a recent well studied example of how complex transport networks emerge from simple auto-catalytic and self- organising local interactions, adapting structure and function against changing…
Adaptive transport networks in biological and physical systems exhibit hierarchical organization, characteristic channel spacing, and robust scaling relations. Existing adaptive network models, formulated on a lattice, successfully…
Leaf venation is a pervasive example of a complex biological network, endowing leaves with a transport system and mechanical resilience. Transport networks optimized for efficiency have been shown to be trees, i.e. loopless. However,…