Spreading of nonmotile bacteria on a hard agar plate: Comparison between agent-based and stochastic simulations

Authored by Pushpita Ghosh, Navdeep Rana, Prasad Perlekar

Date Published: 2017

DOI: 10.1103/physreve.96.052403

Sponsors: Indian Department of Science & Technology (DST)

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

We study spreading of a nonmotile bacteria colony on a hard agar plate by using agent-based and continuum models. We show that the spreading dynamics depends on the initial nutrient concentration, the motility, and the inherent demographic noise. Population fluctuations are inherent in an agent-based model, whereas for the continuum model we model them by using a stochastic Langevin equation. We show that the intrinsic population fluctuations coupled with nonlinear diffusivity lead to a transition from a diffusion limited aggregation type of morphology to an Eden-like morphology on decreasing the initial nutrient concentration.
Tags
morphology Spatiotemporal patterns growth Organization Dependence Population-genetics Bacillus-subtilis Instabilities Surface Colonial development