Motility of Colonial Choanoflagellates and the Statistics of Aggregate Random Walkers

We illuminate the nature of the three-dimensional random walks of microorganisms composed of individual organisms adhered together. Such aggregate random walkers are typified by choanoflagellates, eukaryotes that are the closest living relatives of animals. In the colony-forming species Salpingoeca...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 116; no. 3; p. 038102
Main Authors Kirkegaard, Julius B, Marron, Alan O, Goldstein, Raymond E
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 22.01.2016
Subjects
Choanoflagellata - physiology
Flagella - physiology
Models, Biological
Movement - physiology
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Summary:We illuminate the nature of the three-dimensional random walks of microorganisms composed of individual organisms adhered together. Such aggregate random walkers are typified by choanoflagellates, eukaryotes that are the closest living relatives of animals. In the colony-forming species Salpingoeca rosetta we show that the beating of each flagellum is stochastic and uncorrelated with others, and the vectorial sum of the flagellar propulsion manifests as stochastic helical swimming. A quantitative theory for these results is presented and species variability discussed.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.038102