DIFFUSION-LIMITED GROWTH IN BACTERIAL COLONY FORMATION

Colonies of bacterial species called Bacillus subtilis have been found to grow two-dimensionally and self-similarly on agar plates through diffusion-limited processes in a nutrient concentration field. We obtained a fractal dimension of the colony patterns of D=1.73±0.02, very close to that of the two-dimensional DLA model, and confirmed the existence of the screening effect of protruding main branches against inner ones in a colony, the repulsion between two neighboring colonies and the tendency to grow toward nutrient. These effects are all characteristic of the pattern formation in a Laplacian field. This finding implies the importance of physical properties of the environment for the morphology of bacterial colonies in general. © 1990.