Our results demonstrate that a simple model implementing counteracting processes acting on different length-scales can indeed recreate branching patterns similar to those of swarming colonies. The kernel-based phenomenological model presented here draws from ecological theory, which has long recognized the relevance of distance-dependent processes as drivers for spatial patterning (Levin 1992). Many concepts from patterning in ecology are intimately related with the chemical basis of morphogenesis first proposed by Turing (1952), who first explained that counteracting positive and negative chemical processes acting on different length-scales can lead to symmetry-breaking that triggers biological patterning (Morelli et al 2012). The model presented here is inspired by Turing's findings but uses the spatial kernel approach of recent population ecology models (e.g. Rietkerk et al 2004, Lindstrom et al 2011) rather than reaction–diffusion processes.
Pan Deng, Laura de Vargas Roditi, Dave van Ditmarsch, Joao B Xavier (2014). The ecological basis of morphogenesis: branching patterns in swarming colonies of bacteria New Journal of Physics, 16 (1), 1-16 DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/16/1/015006
Cool!
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