Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Diffusion01:21

Diffusion

4.2K
Diffusion is a type of passive transport. In passive transport, a substance tends to move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration until the concentration is equal across the space. For example, take the diffusion of substances through the air. When someone opens a perfume bottle in a room filled with people, the perfume is at its highest concentration in the bottle and is at its lowest at the edges of the room. The perfume vapor will diffuse, or spread away, from the...
4.2K
Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics01:17

Passive Diffusion: Overview and Kinetics

559
Passive diffusion is a critical process that allows small lipophilic drugs to cross the cell membrane along a concentration gradient. This mechanism's efficiency depends on four primary factors: the membrane's surface area, the drug's lipid-water partition coefficient, the concentration gradient, and the membrane's thickness.
When administered orally, drugs establish a substantial concentration gradient between the gastrointestinal (GI) lumen and the bloodstream, expediting...
559
Protein Diffusion in the Membrane01:24

Protein Diffusion in the Membrane

4.4K
Proteins show rotational as well as lateral diffusion across the membrane. The lateral diffusion of proteins was confirmed through the cell fusion experiment where mouse and human cells were fused, resulting in hybrid cells. When the human and mouse cells fused, the specific membrane proteins on human and mouse cells were marked with the red and green-fluorescent markers, respectively. Initially, the red and green fluorescence was located on the respective hemisphere of the cell. As time...
4.4K
Factors Influencing Microbial Growth: Osmolarity01:28

Factors Influencing Microbial Growth: Osmolarity

48
Osmolarity is the measure of solute concentration in a solution. It plays a critical role in determining water availability for organisms. Water moves across semipermeable membranes through osmosis, flowing from regions of lower solute concentration (more dilute) to regions of higher solute concentration (more concentrated).In high-solute environments, microbial cells lose water, leading to dehydration and inhibited growth. The extent to which water is available to microbes in such environments...
48
Theories of Dissolution: Diffusion Layer Model01:15

Theories of Dissolution: Diffusion Layer Model

825
Dissolution, the process by which drug particles dissolve in a solvent, is explained by the diffusion layer model, a theoretical framework that simulates the absorption of oral drugs and allows us to analyze experimental data.
This process starts with a thin layer, saturated with the drug, forming at the interface between the solid and liquid. The solute then diffuses from this layer into the main solution. The Noyes-Whitney equation suggests that the rate of dissolution relies on the diffusion...
825
Factors Influencing Microbial Growth: Temperature01:27

Factors Influencing Microbial Growth: Temperature

69
Microorganisms display remarkable adaptations, enabling them to thrive in diverse ecological niches across a wide range of temperatures. Temperature profoundly influences microbial growth by affecting enzymatic activity, membrane fluidity, and other cellular processes.Each microorganism operates within a specific temperature range defined by three cardinal points: minimum, optimum, and maximum. Below the minimum temperature, membranes lose fluidity, halting transport processes. Above the...
69

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Interplay of Spatial Structure and Interactions in Microbial Communities.

Environmental microbiology·2026
Same author

Resource diversity and supply drive colonization resistance.

PLoS computational biology·2025
Same author

Revisiting the invasion paradox: Resistance-richness relationship is driven by augmentation and displacement trends.

PLoS computational biology·2024
Same author

Predicting potential SARS-CoV-2 mutations of concern via full quantum mechanical modelling.

Journal of the Royal Society, Interface·2024
Same author

When does a Lotka-Volterra model represent microbial interactions? Insights from <i>in vitro</i> nasal bacterial communities.

mSystems·2023
Same author

Probing the mutational landscape of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein via quantum mechanical modeling of crystallographic structures.

PNAS nexus·2023

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 26, 2025

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations
07:40

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations

Published on: October 29, 2016

11.1K

Spatial structure favors microbial coexistence except when slower mediator diffusion weakens interactions.

Alexander Lobanov1, Samantha Dyckman1, Helen Kurkjian1,2

  • 1Biology Department, Boston College, Boston, United States.

Elife
|June 23, 2023
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Microbial coexistence is promoted by slower cell movement in structured environments, allowing beneficial interactions and avoidance of harmful ones. Environmental structure matters most when microbes facilitate each other.

Keywords:
coexistencecommunity ecologycomputational biologyecologymathematical modelingmicrobial communitiesnonespatial organizationspatial structuresystems biology

More Related Videos

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy
07:00

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Published on: October 4, 2024

642
Combining Fluidic Devices with Microscopy and Flow Cytometry to Study Microbial Transport in Porous Media Across Spatial Scales
12:32

Combining Fluidic Devices with Microscopy and Flow Cytometry to Study Microbial Transport in Porous Media Across Spatial Scales

Published on: November 25, 2020

6.5K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 26, 2025

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations
07:40

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations

Published on: October 29, 2016

11.1K
Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy
07:00

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Published on: October 4, 2024

642
Combining Fluidic Devices with Microscopy and Flow Cytometry to Study Microbial Transport in Porous Media Across Spatial Scales
12:32

Combining Fluidic Devices with Microscopy and Flow Cytometry to Study Microbial Transport in Porous Media Across Spatial Scales

Published on: November 25, 2020

6.5K

Area of Science:

  • Microbial Ecology
  • Theoretical Ecology
  • Biophysics

Background:

  • Microbial communities often inhabit spatially structured environments.
  • Interactions within these communities are frequently mediated by diffusible metabolites.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how spatial structure and metabolite diffusion influence microbial coexistence.
  • To model the spatial reorganization and selection of microbial species during enrichment.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a model incorporating explicit spatial distributions of microbial species.
  • Simulated the enrichment process to observe spatial reorganization and species coexistence.
  • Analyzed the impact of cell motility, mediator production/consumption, and diffusion rates.

Main Results:

  • Slower cell motility enhances coexistence by facilitating co-localization with facilitators and avoidance of inhibitors.
  • Spatial structure is more critical for coexistence in primarily facilitative interactions compared to competitive ones.
  • Optimal coexistence is linked to moderate mediator production and consumption, with balanced rates.
  • Slow mediator diffusion was found to disfavor coexistence due to weakened interaction strengths.

Conclusions:

  • Cell motility, mediator dynamics, and spatial structure are key determinants of microbial coexistence.
  • The interplay between production, consumption, motility, and diffusion shapes microbial community assembly in situ.
  • Spatial structuring can be a powerful factor in maintaining microbial diversity under specific interaction conditions.