Swarming, a collective motion of many thousands of cells, produces colonies that rapidly spread over surfaces. In this paper, we introduce a cell-based model to study how interactions between neighboring cells facilitate swarming. We chose to study Myxococcus xanthus, a species of myxobacteria, because it swarms rapidly and has well-defined cell-cell interactions mediated by type IV pili and by...

File swarming (or file sharing) is one of the most important applications in P2P networks. In this paper, we propose a stochastic framework to analyze a file swarming system under realistic setting: constraints in upload/download capacity, collaboration among peers and incentive for chunk exchange. We first extend the results in the coupon system [18] by providing a tighter performance bound. T...

p-Nitrophenylglycerol (PNPG) effectively inhibits swarming of the enterobacterium Proteus mirabilis. The underlying mechanism of inhibition is unclear. We have now found that both PNPG also inhibits motility and swarming in another enterobacterium, Serratia marcescens. While the peak promoter activities of the flagellar master operon (flhDCSm), the flagellin structural gene (hagSm) and the nucl...

Most bacteria in nature live in surface-associated communities rather than planktonic populations. Nonetheless, how surface-associated environments shape bacterial evolutionary adaptation remains poorly understood. Here, we show that subjecting Pseudomonas aeruginosa to repeated rounds of swarming, a collective form of surface migration, drives remarkable parallel evolution toward a hyperswarme...

Honey bee colonies reproduce through swarming, in which about half the workers and the laying queen leave the natal nest and form a cluster in nearby vegetation. After a new nest cavity has been selected, the entire swarm cluster and the queen must become airborne and move en masse to the chosen site. Failure of the queen to leave the natal nest or relocate to the new nest cavity will result in...

Interactions between individuals that are guided by simple rules can generate swarming behavior. Swarming behavior has been observed in many groups of organisms, including humans, and recent research has revealed that plants also demonstrate social behavior based on mutual interaction with other individuals. However, this behavior has not previously been analyzed in the context of swarming. Her...

Collective surface migration of bacterial cells on a growth medium can lead to interesting spatiotemporal patterns and dynamical behaviors. Studying the rich behavior of these swarming colonies can provide insight in how the multicellular organisms were originally formed. Bacterial swarming is an example of emergent behavior as a result of interplay between the collective interactions of a popu...

Proteus mirabilis rapidly migrates across surfaces using a periodic developmental process of differentiation alternating between short swimmer cells and elongated hyperflagellated swarmer cells. To undergo this vigorous flagellum-mediated motility, bacteria must generate a substantial proton gradient across their cytoplasmic membranes by using available energy pathways. We sought to identify th...

Swarming is a particular type of motility that is promoted by flagella and allows bacteria to move rapidly over and between surfaces and through viscous environments. Swarming must confer considerable survival benefit, as a heterogeneous group of bacteria exhibit this form of motility, including strains of Aeromonas, Azospirillum, Bacillus, Burkholderia, Chromobacterium, Clostridium, Escherichi...