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Modelling of spatio-temporal patterns in bacterial colonies

A. M. Lacasta, I. R. Cantalapiedra, C. E. Auguet, A. Penaranda, L. Ramirez-Piscina

cond-matarXiv:cond-mat/9904367

Abstract

A diffusion-reaction model for the growth of bacterial colonies is presented. The often observed cooperative behavior developed by bacteria which increases their motility in adverse growth conditions is here introduced as a nonlinear diffusion term. The presence of this mechanism depends on a response which can present hysteresis. By changing only the concentrations of agar and initial nutrient, numerical integration of the proposed model reproduces the different patterns shown by Bacillus subtilis OG-01.

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