The mechanism of fractal-like structure formation by bacterial populations.

Three types of population growth and development of chemotaxic motile bacteria Escherichia coli on semi-solid nutrient media are investigated: a) stable development - circular symmetrical waves; b) bursts; c) fractal-like self-organization. Experimental investigation of the burst formation is presented. The microscopic analysis of growing, fractal-like structures is carried out, and a mechanism for such structure formation is suggested. It is supposed that fractal-like bacterial structures growth is based on the principle of successively forming multiple micro-bursts. A mathematical model has been suggested to reproduce the experimental results. The structures obtained by numerical modeling of population growth in the parameter space 'substrate concentration - bacterial movement rate' reproduce the corresponding experimental structures in the space 'nutrient concentration in the media - the density of the media'.

Instability of waves formed by motile bacteria.

Many motile chemotactic bacteria (for instance, Escherichia coli) inoculated at some point in a semisolid nutrient medium can form circular expanding population waves. The formation of these motile structures is due to chemotaxis. The circular waves originate from an expanding bacterial lawn (a parent population). The regular shape of these waves results from the isotropic distribution of freely diffusible nutrient molecules which are also attractants. In this paper we show that the regular shape of the bacterial population waves can be spontaneously disturbed. As this takes place arc-shaped population waves ('bursts') are formed. It was found that initially the mean length of the cells forming the bursts was greater than that of the parent cell population. But then it decreased resulting in a value characteristic of the parent population.