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Dresden 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 34: Posters - Physics of Physarum polycephalum and Other Slime Molds (Focus Session)

BP 34.5: Poster

Dienstag, 21. März 2017, 14:00–16:00, P2-OG1

Pruning to increase transport in Physarum polycephalum — •Sophie Marbach1,4, Karen Alim2,4, Nathalie Andrew2,4, Anne Pringle3, and Michael Brenner41Laboratoire de Physique Statistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France — 2Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen, Germany — 3Departments of Botany and Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin, USA — 4School of Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

How do the topology and the geometry of a tubular network affect the spread of particles within fluid flows? We investigate the detailed physical forces responsible for mixing in the hierarchical, biological transport network formed by Physarum polycephalum. We introduce an efficient method to build patterns of effective dispersion, taking into account all the specificities of the individual. We demonstrate that a change in topology - pruning in the foraging state - causes a large increase in effective dispersion throughout the network. By comparison, changes in the hierarchy of tube radii result in smaller and more localized differences. Pruned networks capitalize on Taylor dispersion to increase the dispersion capability. It is fascinating to speculate that pruning in other biological systems, for example, during vessel development in zebra fish brain development [1] or during growth of a large fungal body [2], serve a similar objective of enhanced effective dispersion. Pruning itself might be triggered by the concentration of specific dispersing particles. Pruning is also tightly governed by the initial pattern of hierarchy, and the dynamic entanglement between hierarchy and pruning remains unsolved. Investigating the mechanisms allowing for pruning would be highly instructive in the process of understanding the overall organization of organisms, and is ongoing work.

[1] Chen, Q. et al., PLoS Biol. 10, e1001374 (2012)

[2] Smith, M. L., Bruhn, J. N., and Anderson, J. B., Nature, 356, 428 (1992).

For more details, Marbach, S. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 178103 (2016)

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