EE Seminar: A Framework for Collective Behavior in Plant-Inspired Growth-Driven Systems

20 במאי 2019, 15:00 
חדר 011, בניין כיתות-חשמל 

(The talk will be given in English)

 

Speaker:     Dr. Yasmine Meroz
                     School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University

 

Monday, May 20th, 2019
15:00 - 16:00

Room 011, Kitot Bldg., Faculty of Engineering

 

A Framework for Collective Behavior in Plant-Inspired Growth-Driven Systems

Abstract

A variety of biological systems are not motile, but sessile in nature, relying on growth as the main driver of their movement. Groups of such growing organisms can form complex structures, such as the functional architecture of growing axons, or the adaptive structure of plant root systems. These processes are not yet understood, however the decentralized growth dynamics bear similarities to the collective behavior observed in groups of motile organisms, such as flocks of birds or schools of fish. Equivalent growth mechanisms make these systems amenable to a theoretical framework inspired by tropic responses of plants, where growth is considered implicitly as the driver of the observed bending towards a stimulus. We introduce two new concepts related to plant tropisms: point tropism, the response of a plant to a nearby point signal source, and allotropism, the growth-driven response of plant organs to neighboring plants. We first analytically and numerically investigate the 2D dynamics of single organs responding to point signals fixed in space. Building on this we study pairs of organs interacting via allotropism, i.e. each organ senses signals emitted at the tip of their neighbor and responds accordingly. In the case of local sensing we find a rich phase space. This work sets the stage towards a theoretical framework for the investigation and understanding of systems of interacting growth-driven individuals.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/566364v1
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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