title: Bacterial stigmergy: an organising principle of multicellular collective behaviours of bacteria.
abstract: The self-organisation of collective behaviours often manifests as dramatic patterns of emergent large-scale order. This is true for relatively "simple" entities such as microbial communities and robot "swarms," through to more complex self-organised systems such as those displayed by social insects, migrating herds, and many human activities. The principle of stigmergy describes those self-organised phenomena that emerge as a consequence of indirect communication between individuals of the group through the generation of persistent cues in the environment. Interestingly, despite numerous examples of multicellular behaviours of bacteria, the principle of stigmergy has yet to become an accepted theoretical framework that describes how bacterial collectives self-organise. Here we review some examples of multicellular bacterial behaviours in the context of stigmergy with the aim of bringing this powerful and elegant self-organisation principle to the attention of the microbial research community.
authors: The ithree Institute, University of Technology Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia.
authors: Erin S
authors: ES
authors: Gloag
authors: The ithree Institute, University of Technology Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia.
authors: Lynne
authors: 0000-0002-9255-9033
authors: L
authors: Turnbull
authors: The ithree Institute, University of Technology Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia.
authors: Cynthia B
authors: CB
authors: Whitchurch
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