Related papers: Life and Death near a Windy Oasis
The transition from localized to systemic spreading of bacteria, viruses and other agents is a fundamental problem that spans medicine, ecology, biology and agriculture science. We have conducted experiments and simulations in a simple…
A population evolving in an inhomogeneous environment will adapt differently to different regions. We study the conditions under which such a population can maintain adaptations to a particular region when that region is not stationary, but…
We model an enclosed system of bacteria, whose motility-induced phase separation is coupled to slow population dynamics. Without noise, the system shows both static phase separation and a limit cycle, in which a rising global population…
The kinetics of the annihilation process, $A+A\to 0$, with ballistic particle motion is investigated when the distribution of particle velocities is {\it discrete}. This discreteness is the source of many intriguing phenomena. In the mean…
The FKPP equation with a variable growth rate and advection by an incompressible velocity field is considered as a model for plankton dispersed by ocean currents. If the average growth rate is negative then the model has a…
We experimentally investigate how aerotactic bacteria, confined within a thin liquid film between two solid substrates, respond to a controlled oxygen gradient. We find that the total bacterial number density dictates which mechanism…
Extinction transition of bacteria under forced rotation is analyzed in pie geometry. Under convection, separation of the radial and the azimuthal degrees of freedom is not possible, and the linearized evolution operator is diagonalized…
The survival probability of a particle diffusing in the two dimensional domain $x>0$ near a ``windy cliff'' at $x=0$ is investigated. The particle dies upon reaching the edge of the cliff. In addition to diffusion, the particle is…
We report the spatio-temporal response of {\it Bacillus subtilis} growing on a nutrient-rich layer of agar to ultra-violet (UV) radiation. Below a crossover temperature, the bacteria are confined to regions that are shielded from UV…
Many types of bacteria can survive under stress by switching stochastically between two different phenotypes: the "normals" who multiply fast, but are vulnerable to stress, and the "persisters" who hardly multiply, but are resilient to…
We study the kinetics of two-species annihilation, A+B--->0, when all particles undergo strictly biased motion in the same direction and with an excluded volume repulsion between same species particles. It was recently shown that the…
We investigate the time evolution and stationary states of a stochastic, spatially discrete, population model (contact process) with spatial heterogeneity and imposed drift (wind) in one- and two-dimensions. We consider in particular a…
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…
In the present work, we develop a delayed Logistic growth model to study the effects of decontamination on the bacterial population in the ambient environment. Using the linear stability analysis, we study different case scenarios, where…
We study the ABC model (A + B --> 2B, B + C --> 2C, C + A --> 2A), and its counterpart: the three--component neutral drift model (A + B --> 2A or 2B, B + C --> 2B or 2C, C + A --> 2C or 2A.) In the former case, the mean field approximation…
Many organisms form colonies for a transient period of time to withstand environmental pressure. Bacterial biofilms are a prototypical example of such behavior. Despite significant interest across disciplines, physical mechanisms governing…
We investigate the dynamics of the Fisher equation for the spreading of micro-organisms in one dimension subject to both turbulent convection and diffusion. We show that for strong enough turbulence, bacteria, for example, track in a…
Heterogeneities in environmental conditions often induce corresponding heterogeneities in the distribution of species. In the extreme case of a localized patch of increased growth rates, reproducing populations can become strongly…
Within many bacterial colonies, persister cells exist as a subpopulation that is tolerant to antibiotics and other stressors, yet not genetically distinct from the rest of the colony. A recent study has proposed epigenetic inheritance as a…
The applicability of the Fisher equation, which combines diffusion with logistic nonlinearity, to population dynamics of bacterial colonies is studied with the help of explicit analytic solutions for the spatial distribution of a stationary…