Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 14: Poster Session I
BP 14.5: Poster
Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 10:00–12:30, P3
Self-Organized Colonization Resistance without Physical Barriers — •Christian Westendorf1, Valentin Slepukhin1, Birgit Koch1, Victor Peris1, and Oskar Hallatschek1,2 — 1Peter Debye Institute for Soft Matter Physics, Leipzig University. — 2Department of physics, University of California, Berkeley.
Small micrometer-scale cavities, such as gut crypts, soil pores, and plant apoplasts, represent key bacterial habitats, in which different strains compete for resources and space. Recent studies have shown that the physical structures of these microhabitats can influence the stability and resilience of bacterial colonizers by protecting local populations from invasion. Building on this, we experimentally and computationally investigate the dynamics of mixed bacterial populations within interconnected microfluidic cavities, examining the influence of geometric features and surface interactions on microbial organization and diversity. Our findings reveal that surface roughness and friction can drive self-organization into effectively isolated subpopulations, safeguarding slower-growing strains from competitive exclusion. By comparing velocity fields of growing populations with stochastic and analytical simulations, we demonstrate how local geometry and emergent microhabitats balance selective pressures, maintaining microbial diversity under competitive and evolutionary stress. Our work suggests that colonization-resistant microhabitats can form dynamically, even in the absence of physical barriers.
Keywords: Bacteria; Evolution; Competition; Selection; Microfluidics