Berlin 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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

BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 22: Statistical Physics of Biological Systems III (with DY)

BP 22.1: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 29. März 2012, 15:00–15:15, H 1058

Predicting the evolution of the transport network of Physarum polycephalum — •Werner Baumgarten and Marcus Hauser — Abteilung Biophysik, Institut für Experimentelle Physik, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Germany

The plasmodium of the unicellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum forms a characteristic two-dimensional vein network, which extends in search of food. Protoplasm is transported periodically back and forth through the tubular network. With time, the network coarsens by deletion of the least efficient pathways.

The vein network of P. polycephalum is a weighted, undirected, regular graph where the veins form the edges and the branching points the nodes [1,2]. The weight is given by the local drag through each vein segment and the efficiency of the transport pathways is calculated using Dijkstra’s algorithm [3] and the edge betweenness. This provides for a predictive tool to identify the least effective veins, and to predict the evolution of the network.

[1] W. Baumgarten, M.J.B. Hauser, Phys. Rev. E 82, 046113 (2010).

[2] W. Baumgarten, M.J.B. Hauser, J. Comp. Interdisc. Sci. 1, 241 (2010).

[3] E.W. Dijkstra, Num. Math. 1, 269 (1959).