Related papers: Oxygenation-Controlled Collective Dynamics in Aqua…
We report on the effects of temporal modulation of the driving force on a particular class of localized states, known as worms, that have been observed in electroconvection in nematic liquid crystals. The worms consist of the superposition…
We investigate the dynamics of \textbf{\textit{Lumbriculus variegatus}} in water-saturated sediment beds to understand limbless locomotion in the benthic zone found at the bottom of lakes and oceans. These slender aquatic worms are observed…
Anaerobic processes (e.g., methanogenesis and fermentation) largely contribute to element cycling and natural contaminant attenuation/mobilization, even in well-oxygenated porous environments, such as shallow aquifers. This paradox is…
Collective motion is a phenomenon observed across length scales in nature, from bacterial swarming and tissue migration to the flocking of animals. The mechanisms underlying this behavior vary significantly depending on the biological…
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…
Limbless crawling is ubiquitous in biology, from cells to organisms. We develop and analyze a model for the dynamics of one-dimensional elastic crawlers, subject to active stress and deformation-dependent friction with the substrate. We…
Wasps, bees, ants and termites all make effective use of their environment and resources by displaying collective swarm intelligence. Termite colonies - for instance - build nests with a complexity far beyond the comprehension of the…
Flocking behavior is observed in biological systems from the cellular to super-organismal length scales, and the mechanisms and purposes of this behavior are objects of intense interest. In this paper, we study the collective dynamics of…
We investigate the aggregation and phase separation of thin, living T. tubifex worms that behave as active polymers. Randomly dispersed active worms spontaneously aggregate to form compact, highly entangled blobs, a process similar to…
In recent years the functionality of synthetic active microparticles has edged even closer to that of their biological counterparts. However, we still lack the understanding needed to recreate at the microscale key features of autonomous…
Collective motion by animal groups is affected by internal interactions, external constraints and the influx of information. A quantitative understanding of how these different factors give rise to different modes of collective motion is,…
Anaerobic digestion enables the water industry to treat wastewater as a resource for generating energy and recovering valuable by-products. The complexity of the anaerobic digestion process has motivated the development of complex models.…
A great number of biological organisms live in aqueous environments. Major evolutionary transitions, including the emergence of life itself, likely occurred in such environments. While the chemical aspects of the role of water in biology…
Self-organization is the generation of order out of local interactions in non-equilibrium [1]. It is deeply connected to all fields of science from physics, chemistry to biology where functional living structures self-assemble[2] and…
Natural flocks (aligned) and swarms (non-aligned) both exhibit features of near-criticality, challenging their treatment as two ends of the same phase transition. We present a model for the aggregation of active individuals, in which their…
Understanding physical rules underlying collective motions requires perturbation of controllable parameters in self-propelled particles. However, controlling parameters in animals is generally not easy, which makes collective behaviours of…
Unicellular microscopic organisms living in aqueous environments outnumber all other creatures on Earth. A large proportion of them are able to self-propel in fluids with a vast diversity of swimming gaits and motility patterns. In this…
On small scales, the tropical atmosphere tends to be either moist or very dry. This defines two states that, on large scales, are separated by a sharp margin, well-identified by the anti-mode of the bimodal tropical column water vapor…
Dissolved oxygen (DO) is a non-conservative tracer of interactions at the air-sea interface, respiration and photosynthesis, and advection. In this manuscript, we study extremes in the degree of oxygen saturation (SO), the ratio of DO to…
In response to natural or anthropocentric pollutions coupled to global climate changes, microorganisms from aquatic environments can suddenly accumulate on water surface. These dense suspensions, known as blooms, are harmful to ecosystems…