Swimming, feeding, and inversion of multicellular choanoflagellate sheets
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The recent discovery of the striking sheetlike multicellular choanoflagellate species Choanoeca flexa that dynamically interconverts between two hemispherical forms of opposite orientation raises fundamental questions in cell and evolutionary biology, as choanoflagellates are the closest living relatives of animals. It similarly motivates questions in fluid and solid mechanics concerning the differential swimming speeds in the two states and the mechanism of curvature inversion triggered by changes in the geometry of microvilli emanating from each cell. Here we develop fluid dynamical and mechanical models to address these observations and show that they capture the main features of the swimming, feeding, and inversion of C. flexa colonies, which can be viewed as active, shape-shifting polymerized membranes.
Date Issued
2023-10-16
Date Acceptance
2023-09-06
Citation
Physical Review Letters, 2023, 131 (16)
ISSN
0031-9007
Publisher
American Physical Society
Journal / Book Title
Physical Review Letters
Volume
131
Issue
16
Copyright Statement
Published by the American Physical Society Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37925718
Subjects
Physical Sciences
Physics
Physics, Multidisciplinary
PLATFORM
Science & Technology
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Article Number
168401
Date Publish Online
2023-10-18