Abstract
Three types of population growth and development of chemotaxic motile bacteria Escherichia coli on semi-solid nutrient media are investigated: a) stable development – circular symmetrical waves; b) bursts; c) fractal-like self-organization. Experimental investigation of the burst formation is presented. The microscopic analysis of growing, fractal-like structures is carried out, and a mechanism for such structure formation is suggested. It is supposed that fractal-like bacterial structures growth is based on the principle of successively forming multiple micro-bursts. A mathematical model has been suggested to reproduce the experimental results. The structures obtained by numerical modeling of population growth in the parameter space ‘substrate concentration - bacterial movement rate’ reproduce the corresponding experimental structures in the space ‘nutrient concentration in the media – the density of the media’.
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Tsyganov, M., Kresteva, I., Aslanidi, G. et al. The Mechanism of Fractal-Like Structure Formation by Bacterial Populations. Journal of Biological Physics 25, 165–176 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005153720027
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005153720027