Growth dynamics of Bacillus circulans colony

We have investigated the growth dynamics of Bacillus circulans colony exhibiting the knotted-branching pattern by swarming on a hard agar medium. The knotted-branching pattern consists of many circular clusters, so-called subcolonies, and their trajectories. We analysed the processes of a subcolony because they are presumably the key elements for the formation of knotted-branching pattern. It was found that a subcolony has three processes, i.e. “generation”, “growth”, and “migration” by microscopic and time-resolved observations. An embryonic small subcolony (child subcolony) formed around an existing subcolony (parent subcolony) grows larger and migrates away from the parent subcolony. We proposed a simple model to explain the migration and the growth processes. It is assumed that the internal part of the subcolony is unfavorable for the bacteria and that the motion of the child subcolony on the agar medium can be modeled using a frictional force. The experimental data were quantitatively analysed in order to compare with models. Our models are consistent with the experimental results on following three points: (1) the radius of a subcolony increases linearly with the incubation time, (2) a subcolony stops just after formation and then starts to migrate suddenly, and (3) the trajectory of a subcolony predicted by the model agrees with the experimental one.