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Assessment of Swim Endurance and Swim Behavior in Adult Zebrafish
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Swimming eukaryotic microorganisms exhibit a universal speed distribution.

Maciej Lisicki1,2, Marcos F Velho Rodrigues1, Raymond E Goldstein1

  • 1Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Elife
|July 17, 2019
PubMed
Summary

Microbial swimming speeds in aquatic environments, for both flagellates and ciliates, follow predictable log-normal distributions. This suggests a universal pattern in how microorganisms populate ecological niches.

Keywords:
ciliatesflagellateslog-normal distributionphysics of living systems

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Area of Science:

  • Microbiology and Ecology
  • Quantitative Biology
  • Biophysics

Background:

  • Biological diversity can be quantified by analyzing statistical distributions of organismal properties.
  • Motility is crucial for microorganisms in fluid environments, driven by diverse shapes and swimming strategies.
  • Unicellular eukaryotes exhibit varied morphologies and sizes, influencing their locomotion.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the statistical distribution of swimming speeds in unicellular eukaryotes.
  • To compare swimming speed distributions between flagellates and ciliates.
  • To identify universal patterns in microbial locomotion and niche occupation.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of published swimming speed data for unicellular eukaryotes.
  • Categorization of data into flagellates and ciliates based on flagellar count.
  • Fitting probability distributions to swimming speed data and analyzing moments.
  • Scaling speed distributions by characteristic speeds for inter-group comparison.

Main Results:

  • Swimming speed distributions for both flagellates and ciliates are accurately described by log-normal distributions.
  • The log-normal distribution fit holds well, even for higher statistical moments (up to fourth).
  • Scaling individual distributions by a characteristic speed results in a collapse onto a single, universal distribution.

Conclusions:

  • The log-normal distribution provides a robust model for microbial swimming speeds across different groups.
  • A universal distribution of scaled swimming speeds suggests a common principle governing microbial locomotion.
  • These findings imply a universal mechanism for how microorganisms populate available ecological niches.