Related papers: Microbial range expansions on liquid substrates
Navigation of microorganisms is controlled by internal processes ultimately sensitive to mechanical or chemical signaling encountered along the path. In many natural environments, such as porous soils or physiological ducts, motile species…
How motile bacteria move near a surface is a problem of fundamental biophysical interest and is key to the emergence of several phenomena of biological, ecological and medical relevance, including biofilm formation. Solid boundaries can…
Bacterial colonies can form a wide variety of shapes and structures based on ambient and internal conditions. To help understand the mechanisms that determine the structure of and the diversity within these colonies, various numerical…
Marine species reproduce and compete while being advected by turbulent flows. It is largely unknown, both theoretically and experimentally, how population dynamics and genetics are changed by the presence of fluid flows. Discrete…
Studying exoplanet atmospheres is essential for assessing their potential to host liquid water and their capacity to support life (their habitability). Each atmosphere uniquely influences the likelihood of surface liquid water, defining the…
In the subtropical gyres, phytoplankton rely on eddies for transporting nutrients from depth to the euphotic zone. But, what controls the rate of nutrient supply for new production? We show that vertical nutrient flux depends both on the…
A central challenge for organisms during development is determining a means to efficiently export toxic molecules from inside the developing embryo. For aquatic microorganisms, the strategies employed should be robust with respect to the…
Earth's aquatic environments are inherently stratified layered systems where interfaces between layers serve as ecological niches for microbial swimmers, forming colonies known as Active Carpet (AC). Previous theoretical studies have…
A wide spectrum of Peritrichous bacteria undergo considerable physiological changes when they are inoculated onto nutrition-rich surfaces and exhibit a rapid and collective migration denoted as swarming. Thereby, the length of such swarmer…
We study the transport of bacteria in a porous media modeled by a square channel containing one cylindrical obstacle via molecular dynamics simulations coupled to a lattice Boltzmann fluid. Our bacteria model is a rod-shaped rigid body…
The processes that govern the evolution of dust and water (in the form of vapor or ice) in protoplanetary disks are intimately connected. We have developed a model that simulates dust coagulation, dust dynamics (settling, turbulent mixing),…
Mutualistic interactions benefit both partners, promoting coexistence and genetic diversity. Spatial structure can promote cooperation, but spatial expansions may also make it hard for mutualistic partners to stay together, since genetic…
The formation of a collectively moving group benefits individuals within a population in a variety of ways such as ultra-sensitivity to perturbation, collective modes of feeding, and protection from environmental stress. While some…
We investigate the onset and evolution of zonal flows in a growing convective layer when a stably-stratified fluid with a composition gradient is cooled from above. This configuration allows the study of zonal flows for a wide range of…
Here, we study the evolution of specialization using realistic computer simulations of bacteria that secrete two public goods in a dynamic fluid. Through this first principles approach, we find physical factors such as diffusion, flow…
Understanding mixing and transport of passive scalars in active fluids is important to many natural (e.g. algal blooms) and industrial (e.g. biofuel, vaccine production) processes. Here, we study the mixing of a passive scalar (dye) in…
The population growth of a Staphylococcus aureus culture was followed by rheological measurements, under steady-state and dynamic shear flows. We observed a rich viscoelastic behaviour as a consequence of the bacteria activity. First, the…
Turbulence is ubiquitous, from oceanic currents to small-scale biological and quantum systems. Self-sustained turbulent motion in microbial suspensions presents an intriguing example of collective dynamical behavior amongst the simplest…
Colonies of the social bacterium Myxococcus xanthus go through a morphological transition from a thin colony of cells to three-dimensional droplet-like fruiting bodies as a strategy to survive starvation. The biological pathways that…
During development, organisms acquire three-dimensional shapes with important physiological consequences. While the basic mechanisms underlying morphogenesis are known in eukaryotes, it is often difficult to manipulate them in vivo. To…