Dresden 2020 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Die DPG-Frühjahrstagung in Dresden musste abgesagt werden! Lesen Sie mehr ...

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 16: Poster IV

BP 16.7: Poster

Dienstag, 17. März 2020, 14:00–16:00, P2/EG

Gliding motility and self-organization of Chlamydomonas populations on surfaces — •Sebastian Till, Alexandros Fragkopoulos, and Oliver Bäumchen — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS), 37077 Göttingen, Germany

Green microalgae are photoactive microorganisms that inhabit porous environments, e.g. wet soils and the interstitial space of rocks, where they constantly interact with surfaces. Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a unicellular biflagellated microbe, can adhere and colonize essentially any surface under exposure to blue light. In this surface-adhered state, the flagella are attached in a widespread configuration and the cooperative effort of molecular motors translocates the cell parallel to them. This type of motion is known as gliding motility. We find that for a sufficiently high density of adhered cells, a motility-induced self-organization effect may be observed leading to areas of locally increased cell densities.

In order to understand this clustering, we quantify the surface-based gliding motility of single cells as well as the spatio-temporal evolution of the surface-associated microbial population. The dynamics of single cells is characterized by rapid movements, followed by states of prolonged inactivity. Due to the predominant directionality induced by the initial flagella configuration, the motility can’t be described as a run-and-tumble process, as in their free-swimming state, but rather as a slow rotational diffusion.