Trade-offs in phenotypic noise synchronize emergent topology to actively enhance transport in microbial environments

Abstract

Phenotypic noise underpins homeostasis and fitness of individual cells. Yet, the extent to which noise shapes cell-to-population properties in microbial active matter remains poorly understood. By quantifying variability in confluent \textit{E.coli} strains, we catalogue noise across different phenotypic traits. The noise, measured over different temperatures serving as proxy for cellular activity, spanned more than two orders of magnitude. The maximum noise was associated with the cell geometry and the critical colony area at the onset of mono-to-multilayer transition (MTMT), while the lower bound was set by the critical time of the MTMT. Our results, supported by a hydrodynamic model, suggest that a trade-off between the noise in the cell geometry and the growth rate can lead to the self-regulation of the MTMT timing. The MTMT cascades synchronous emergence of hydrodynamic fields, actively enhancing the micro-environmental transport. Our results highlight how interplay of phenotypic noise triggers emergent deterministic properties, and reveal the role of multifield topology--of the colony structure and hydrodynamics--to insulate confluent systems from the inherent noise associated with natural cell-environment settings.

arXiv comment24 pages, 15 figures

References in corpus (12)

• Cell size regulation in microorganisms
• Topological defects promote layer formation in Myxococcus xanthus colonies
• Verticalization of bacterial biofilms
• Bacteria solve the problem of crowding by moving slowly
• Relationship between cellular response and behavioral variability in bacterial chemotaxis
• Emergence of active nematics in bacterial biofilms
• Pressure and temperature dependence of growth and morphology of Escherichia coli: Experiments and Stochastic Model
• The propagation of active-passive interfaces in bacterial swarms
• Cross-talk between topological defects in different fields revealed by nematic microfluidics
• Mono-to-multilayer transition in growing bacterial colonies
• Nutrient transport driven by microbial active carpets
• Microbial Active Matter: A Topological Framework

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Drying of Bio-colloidal Sessile Droplets: Advances, Applications, and Perspectives
• Spontaneous Self-Constraint in Active Nematic Flows
• Microbes in porous environments: From active interactions to emergent feedback
• Collective mechano-response dynamically tunes cell-size distributions in growing bacterial colonies
• Tilt-induced polar order and topological defects in growing bacterial populations
• Collective Flows Drive Cavitation in Spinner Monolayers
• Substrate stiffness modulates bacterial adhesion and diversity of adherent phenotypes across growth stages
• Toward a realistic model of multilayered bacterial colonies
• Effects of curvature on growing films of microorganisms
• Strain rate controls alignment in growing bacterial monolayers