Academic literature on the topic 'Phoretic interactions'

Bioluminescence imaging experiments were carried out to characterize spatio-temporal patterns of bacterial self-organization in active suspensions (cultures) of bioluminescent Escherichia coli and its mutants. An analysis of the effects of mutations shows that spatio-temporal patterns formed in standard microtitre plates are not related to the chemotaxis system of bacteria. In fact, these patterns are strongly dependent on the properties of mutants that characterize them as self-phoretic (non-flagellar) swimmers. In particular, the observed patterns are essentially dependent on the efficiency of proton translocation across membranes and the smoothness of the cell surface. These characteristics can be associated, respectively, with the surface activity and the phoretic mobility of a colloidal swimmer. An analysis of the experimental data together with mathematical modelling of pattern formation suggests the following: (1) pattern-forming processes can be described by Keller–Segel-type models of chemotaxis with logistic cell kinetics; (2) active cells can be seen as biochemical oscillators that exhibit phoretic drift and alignment; and (3) the spatio-temporal patterns in a suspension of growing E. coli form due to phoretic interactions between oscillating cells of high metabolic activity.

Pseudoscorpions have the ability to attach themselves to a wide variety of more mobile arthropods. This interaction has been termed phoresy. We report on a phoretic interaction of Semeiochernes armiger with a giant tropical fly Pantophthalmus tabaninus in an Amazonian rain forest. Two males and two females of S. armiger were found attached to the right posterior leg of the fly. In addition, more than two hundred mites were found on the thorax of the host fly. Long term and detailed studies on the phoretic associations of pseudoscorpions and hosts in the neotropical rain forest would contribute to a better understanding of these interactions. Keywords: Diptera, Phoresy, Pseudoscorpions, Porto Trombetas, Rain forest.

Diffusiophoresis, the motion of a particle in response to an externally imposed concentration gradient of a solute species, is analysed from both the traditional coarse-grained macroscopic (i.e. continuum) perspective and from a fine-grained micromechanical level in which the particle and the solute are treated on the same footing as Brownian particles dispersed in a solvent. It is shown that although the two approaches agree when the solute is much smaller in size than the phoretic particle and is present at very dilute concentrations, the micromechanical colloidal perspective relaxes these restrictions and applies to any size ratio and any concentration of solute. The different descriptions also provide different mechanical analyses of phoretic motion. At the continuum level the macroscopic hydrodynamic stress and interactive force with the solute sum to give zero total force, a condition for phoretic motion. At the colloidal level, the particle's motion is shown to have two contributions: (i) a ‘back-flow’ contribution composed of the motion of the particle due to the solute chemical potential gradient force acting on it and a compensating fluid motion driven by the long-range hydrodynamic velocity disturbance caused by the chemical potential gradient force acting on all the solute particles and (ii) an indirect contribution arising from the mutual interparticle and Brownian forces on the solute and phoretic particle, that contribution being non-zero because the distribution of solute about the phoretic particle is driven out of equilibrium by the chemical potential gradient of the solute. At the colloidal level the forces acting on the phoretic particle – both the statistical or ‘thermodynamic’ chemical potential gradient and Brownian forces and the interparticle force – are balanced by the Stokes drag of the solvent to give the net phoretic velocity.For a particle undergoing self-phoresis or autonomous motion, as can result from chemical reactions occurring asymmetrically on a particle surface, e.g. catalytic nanomotors, there is no imposed chemical potential gradient and the back-flow contribution is absent. Only the indirect Brownian and interparticle forces contribution is responsible for the motion. The velocity of the particle resulting from this contribution can be written in terms of a mobility times the integral of the local ‘solute pressure’ – the solute concentration times the thermal energy – over the surface of contact between the particle and the solute. This was the approach taken by Córdova-Figueroa & Brady (Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 100, 2008, 158303) in their analysis of self-propulsion. It is shown that full hydrodynamic interactions can be incorporated into their analysis by a simple scale factor.

Abstract The past two decades have seen a remarkable progress in the development of synthetic colloidal agents which are capable of creating directed motion in an unbiased environment at the microscale. These self-propelling particles are often praised for their enormous potential to self-organize into dynamic nonequilibrium structures such as living clusters, synchronized super-rotor structures or self-propelling molecules featuring a complexity which is rarely found outside of the living world. However, the precise mechanisms underlying the formation and dynamics of many of these structures are still barely understood, which is likely to hinge on the gaps in our understanding of how active colloids interact. In particular, besides showing comparatively short-ranged interactions which are well known from passive colloids (Van der Waals, electrostatic etc), active colloids show novel hydrodynamic interactions as well as phoretic and substrate-mediated ‘osmotic’ cross-interactions which hinge on the action of the phoretic field gradients which are induced by the colloids on other colloids in the system. The present article discusses the complexity and the intriguing properties of these interactions which in general are long-ranged, non-instantaneous, non-pairwise and non-reciprocal and which may serve as key ingredients for the design of future nonequilibrium colloidal materials. Besides providing a brief overview on the state of the art of our understanding of these interactions a key aim of this review is to emphasize open key questions and corresponding open challenges.

The potential of insects for forensic investigations has been known for more than 700 years. However, arthropods such as mites could also play a role in these investigations. The information obtained from insects, together with their phoretic mites, is of special interest in terms of estimating the time and geographical location of death. This paper presents the first interaction network between phoretic mites and their host insects in Navarra. It also reports the first time that an interaction network was applied to animal remains of forensic relevance. The data reveal the degrees of specificity of the interactions established, the biological and ecological characteristics of the mites at the time of association, and factors that played important roles in the mites’ dispersion. Fauna was collected using 657 traps baited with 20 g of pig carrion over a year. Only 0.6% of insects collected carried phoretic mites. The network comprised 312 insects (275 beetles, 37 flies) and 1533 mites and was analyzed using various packages of the R programming language. We contribute new host insect records for 15 mites, 3 new records of insects as hosts, 5 new mite records for the Iberian Peninsula, and 2 new mites records and 8 new insect records for Navarra.

Many heterostigmatic mites (Acari: Prostigmata: Heterostigmata) display a wide range of symbiotic interactions, from phoresy to parasitism, with a variety of insects. Australia is expected to harbour a rich diversity of heterostigmatic mites; however, its phoretic fauna and its host associations remain mainly unexplored. We conducted a short exploration of Australian insect-associated phoretic mites in summer 2020 and found two new phoretic heterostigmatic species on a semiaquatic hydrophilid beetle species, Coelostoma fabricii (Montrouzier, 1860) (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae). Here, we describe these two new species, Allopygmephorus coelostomus sp. nov. (Neopygmephoridae) and Archidispus hydrophilus sp. nov. (Scutacaridae), which both belong to the superfamily Pygmephoroidea. Both species are distinct from their congeners, with a plesiomorphic character, bearing a median genital sclerite (mgs). Our study reports both genera for the first time from Australia.

AbstractPhoretic self-propulsion is a unique example of force- and torque-free motion on small scales. The classical framework describing the flow field around a particle swimming by self-diffusiophoresis neglects the advection of the solute field by the flow and assumes that the chemical interaction layer is thin compared to the particle size. In this paper we quantify and characterize the effect of solute advection on the phoretic swimming of a sphere. We first rigorously derive the regime of validity of the thin-interaction-layer assumption at finite values of the Péclet number (${Pe}$). Under this assumption, we solve computationally the flow around Janus phoretic particles and examine the impact of solute advection on propulsion and the flow created by the particle. We demonstrate that although advection always leads to a decrease of the swimming speed and flow stresslet at high values of the Péclet number, an increase can be obtained at intermediate values of ${Pe}$. This possible enhancement of swimming depends critically on the nature of the chemical interactions between the solute and the surface. We then derive an asymptotic analysis of the problem at small ${Pe}$ which allows us to rationalize our computational results. Our computational and theoretical analysis is accompanied by a parallel study of the influence of reactive effects at the surface of the particle (Damköhler number) on swimming.

There has been a recent interest in integrating external fields with inertial microfluidic devices to tune particle focusing. In this work, we analyse the inertial migration of an electrophoretic particle in a two-dimensional Poiseuille flow with an electric field applied parallel to the walls. For a thin electrical double layer, the particle exhibits a slip-driven electrokinetic motion along the direction of the applied electric field, which causes the particle to lead or lag the flow (depending on its surface charge). The fluid disturbance caused by this slip-driven motion is characterized by a rapidly decaying source-dipole field which alters the inertial lift on the particle. We determine this inertial lift using the reciprocal theorem. Assuming no wall effects, we derive an analytical expression for a ‘phoretic lift’ which captures the modification to the inertial lift due to electrophoresis. We also take wall effects into account, at the leading order, using the method of reflections. We find that for a leading particle, the phoretic lift acts towards the regions of high shear (i.e. walls), while the reverse is true for a lagging particle. Using an order-of-magnitude analysis, we obtain different components of the inertial force and classify them on the basis of the interactions from which they emerge. We show that the dominant contribution to the phoretic lift originates from the interaction of the source-dipole field (generated by the electrokinetic slip at the particle surface) with the stresslet field (generated due to particle’s resistance to strain in the background flow). Furthermore, to contrast the slip-driven phenomenon (electrophoresis) from the force-driven phenomenon (buoyancy) in terms of their influence on the inertial migration, we also study a non-neutrally buoyant particle. We show that the gravitational effects alter the inertial lift primarily through the interaction of the background shear with the buoyancy-induced Stokeslet field.

La phorèse est un mécanisme physico-chimique par lequel certains colloïdes microscopiques dérivent à travers les gradients d'un champ de concentration de soluté dans un fluide. Ce mécanisme est exploité par des particules autophorétiques, ou colloïdes actifs chimiquement, pour auto-propulser. Ces particules influencent les mouvements de leurs voisines par le biais d'interactions chimiques et hydrodynamiques et sont donc étudiées pour leur comportement collectif. La modélisation de ces interactions a fait l'objet de recherches approfondies au cours des dernières années, à la fois d'un point de vue physique pour comprendre les mécanismes précis des interactions, et d'un point de vue expérimental pour expliquer les observations de la formation de structures cohérentes à grande échelle. Cependant, une modélisation exacte de ces suspensions actives est difficile en raison des interactions à grand nombre de particules. Jusqu'à présent, la plupart des modèles proposés reposent sur la superposition d'approximations de champ lointain pour les signatures chimiques et hydrodynamiques de chaque particule, qui ne sont valides que de manière asymptotique dans la limite de suspensions très diluées. Un cadre analytique systématique et unifié basé sur la méthode classique de réflexion (MoR) est développé ici pour les problèmes de Laplace et de Stokes afin d'obtenir les interactions entre particules phorétiques et les vitesses résultantes avec un ordre de précision arbitraire en terme du rapport du rayon et de la distance typique entre deux particules voisines.Un système comprenant uniquement des particules autophorétiques homogènes et isotropes chimiquement et géométriquement est ensuite considéré en détail. On sait que de telles particules isotropes ne peuvent se propulser seules; cependant, en présence d'autres particules identiques, la symétrie du champ de concentration est brisée et les particules forment spontanément des agrégats ou clusters denses. De manière remarquable, ceux-ci peuvent s'auto-propulser si leur arrangement est présente une asymétrie. Ce résultat identifie donc une nouvelle voie pour briser la symétrie du champ de concentration et ainsi générer un mouvement, qui ne repose pas sur une conception anisotrope des particules individuelles, mais sur les interactions collectives de particules actives identiques et homogènes. Un argument pour l'origine de ce comportement auto-propulsif des clusters, basé sur la MoR, est proposé. De plus, en utilisant des simulations numériques complètes combinées à un modèle théorique réduit, nous caractérisons les propriétés statistiques de l'autopropulsion
Diffusiophoresis is a physico-chemical mechanism by which certain microscopic colloids drift through gradients of a solute concentration field in a fluid. This mechanism is exploited by autophoretic particles, which are chemically active synthetic colloids, to achieve self-propulsion. These particles influence each others' motion through chemical and hydrodynamic interactions and are hence known to exhibit collective behaviour. Modeling these interactions is a subject of intense research over the past decades, both from a physical perspective to understand the precise mechanisms of the interactions, as well as from an experimental point of view to explain the observations of formation of coherent large-scale structures. However, an exact modeling of is difficult due to multi-body interactions and surface effects. Most efforts so far rely on the superposition of far-field approximations for each particle's signature, which are only valid asymptotically in the dilute suspension limit. A systematic and unified analytical framework based on the classical Method of Reflections (MoR) is developed here for both Laplace and Stokes' problems to obtain the multi-body interactions and the resulting velocities of phoretic particles, up to any order of accuracy in the radius-to-distance ratio of the particles.A system comprising only of chemically- and geometrically-isotropic autophoretic particles is then considered in detail. It is known that such isotropic particles cannot self-propel in isolation; however, in the presence of other identical particles, the symmetry of the concentration field is broken and the particles spontaneously form close packed clusters. Remarkably, these clusters are observed to self-propel based on their geometric arrangement. This result thus identifies a new route to symmetry-breaking for the concentration field and to self-propulsion, that is not based on an anisotropic design, but on the collective interactions of identical and homogeneous active particles. An argument for origin of this self-propulsive behaviour of clusters is made based on MoR. Furthermore, using full numerical simulations and theoretical model for clustering, we characterize the statistical properties of self-propulsion of the system

Phoresy is the dispersal of small organisms on larger ones to move out of an unfavourable habitat. Although these interactions are transient, they can form tight links with mutualistic interactions if the phoretic organisms are dependent on both mutualistic partners, one serving as a vehicle with the other providing a substratum for development. These linked tripartite interactions may further lead to increase in host specificity in phoretic organisms. Therefore, to understand the effects of phoretic interactions on the entire mutualistic system and factors that can help the phoretic organisms to gain host-specificity, I investigated the phoretic nematode community associated with the fig–fig wasp brood-site pollination mutualism. I chose Ficus racemosa, a wide-spread and a common tropical keystone fig species, which shows a mutualistic relationship with a unique pollinating fig wasp species and harbours a host-specific phoretic nematode community. Ficus racemosa has an Indo-Australian distribution and is known to be associated with several nematode species throughout its range. A few nematode species have also been reported from India, but they lacked comprehensive detail on their morphology and also molecular characterization, thus making it difficult to carry out further species-specific studies. Therefore, we firstly characterised the phoretic nematode community associated with the Ficus racemosa system in south India, using both morphological and molecular approaches and found a mixture of plant-parasitic, animal-parasitic and possibly omnivorous taxa. We found that the nematode community consisted of three new nematode species out of which one species showed phenotypic plasticity. The phylogenetic analysis based upon near-full-length small subunit (SSU) and D2–D3 expansion segments of large subunit (LSU) rRNA genes showed that the species have close affinities with sister nematode species reported from Ficus racemosa from other geographical locations outside India. To determine the effects of phoretic nematodes on the entire mutualism, we performed various bioassays and determined the fitness effects of phoretic organisms on both mutualistic partners, i.e., figs and pollinator fig wasps. We found that not only did the nematodes negatively affect the survival, flight ability, offspring number and predation risk faced by their fig wasp vehicles, but they also negatively impacted fruit seed number and size in a density-dependent manner. Furthermore, wasps arriving at their destinations carried lower phoretic nematode load compared to dispersing wasps suggesting that there is selection on hitchhiker numbers within a vehicle during the dispersal process. Using choice experiments with single nematodes and employing conspecific as well as heterospecific co-travellers, we showed that these phoretic organisms were able to distinguish between vehicles with different hitchhiker density and physiological states. Plant-parasitic nematodes preferred vehicles devoid of conspecifics and likely hitchhiked in pairs, while animal-parasitic nematodes preferred vehicles with conspecifics within a certain density range. Both types of nematodes were insensitive to the presence of heterospecific co-travellers. The nematodes used volatiles and carbon dioxide for this intra-specific vehicular discrimination. We also characterized the volatiles emitted by the pollinator wasps and identified the possible set of compounds that might elicit an attraction response in the nematodes towards their vehicles. Overall, we show that phoretic nematodes have a density-dependent negative effect on the mutualism between figs and their pollinating fig wasps and that they use parameters such as vehicle physiology and existing traveller load within the vehicle to select a vehicle for their dispersal.

Abstract The force-free nature of interfacial transport processes that are collectively terms as phoretic mechanisms (such as diffusiophoresis, electrophoresis, thermophoresis, etc) affords the possibility of designing self-propelled particles, e.g. Janus particles with built-in sources that arise from catalytic activity or light-induced heating. A key aspect of the nonequilibrium phoretic mechanisms that are used to design self-propulsion is that they lead to the creation of thermodynamic fields (such as concentration field, electrostatic potential, temperature profile, etc) that mediate effective long-range interactions by the very nature of their nonequilibrium activity. The existence of such long-range fields implies that theoretical descriptions of self-propelled particles with short-range equilibrium-type interactions might be unrealistic when it comes to systems that rely on phoretic mechanisms for self-propulsion. Here, a comprehensive account of the theory of phoretic active matter is presented, covering a wide range of length scales, from chemically active molecules such as enzymes to active colloids and chemotactic cells.

From cytoskeletal macromolecules and micron-sized bacteria to giant fish swarms, active-matter systems occur on all scales throughout nature. These systems are internally driven out of equilibrium and therefore allow for the emergence of a plethora of complex phenomena that are essential for life. In this chapter, we illustrate the unique power of computer simulations to provide a quantitative understanding of active matter. First, basic active-matter model systems are described, including biological and synthetic self-propelled objects, where the driving mechanism is modeled on different levels of abstraction. Second, focusing on bacterial motion, we will discuss the role of hydrodynamic interactions for collective swimming and the role of activity for the rheology of dense bacterial colonies. Third, we will provide examples of active agents that are coupled together by interacting with deformable manifolds such as filaments and membranes. This leads to diverse non-equilibrium shapes, deformations, and motility modes. Finally, some results of simulations of active gels, multicellular growing structures and artificial phoretic swimmers are shown, illustrating the extraordinary diversity of computational active-matter systems.

Hemisarcoptes (Acari: Hamisarcoptidae) is a parasite of scale insects (Diaspididae), tenacious pests of vascular plants. Hemisarcoptes also has a stenoxenic phoretic (dispersal) relationship with Chilocorus (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae). Chilocorus feeds on diaspidids, transports mites as they feed, and has been applied to the control of scales, with limited success. U.S.-Israeli cooperation focused on this mite-beetle interaction so that a two-component system could be applied to the control of scale insects effectively. Life history patterns of Hemisarcoptes were investigated in response to host plant type and physical parameters. Field and lab data indicated that mites attack all host stages of scales tested, but preferred adult females. Scale species and host plant species influenced the bionomics of Hemisarcoptes. Beetle diet also influenced survival of phoretic mites. Mites use a ventral sucker plate to extract material from Chilocorus, that is essential for development. Seven alkaloids were found in the hemolymph of Chilocorus and three were characterized. Examination of the subelytral surface of Chilocorus indicated that microsetae play a role in the number and distribution of mites a beetle transports. While Hemisarcoptes can be innoculatd into agroecosystems using various indigenous or imported Chilocorus species, the following are preferred: C. bipustulatus, C. cacti, C. distigma, C. fraternus, C. orbus, and C. tristis.

Mycoplasma iowae (Mi) is a pathogenic avian mycoplasma which causes mortality in turkey embryos and as such has clinical and economic significance for the turkey breeder industry. Control of Mi infection is severely hampered by lack of adequate diagnostic tests, together with resistance to most antibiotics and resilience to environment. A markedly high degree of intra-species antigenic variation also contributes to difficulties in detection and control of infection. In this project we have designed an innovative gene-based diagnostic test based on specific amplification of the 16S rRNA gene of Mi. This reaction, designed Multi-species PCR-RFLP test, also amplifies the DNA of the pathogenic avian mycoplasmas M. gallisepticum (Mg) and M. synoviae (Ms). This test detects DNA equivalent to about 300 cfu Mi or either of the other two target mycoplasmas, individually or in mixed infection. It is a quick test, applicable to a wide variety of clinical samples, such as allantoic fluid or tracheal or cloacal swab suspensions. Differential diagnosis is carried out by gel electro-phoresis of the PCR amplicon digested with selected restriction enzymes (Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism). This can also be readily accomplished by using a simple Dot-Blot hybridization assay with digoxigenin-labeled oligonucleotide probes reacting specifically with unique Mi, Mg or Ms sequences in the PCR amplicon. The PCR/OLIGO test increased sensitivity by at least 10-fold with a capacity for rapid testing of large numbers of samples. Experimental infection trials were carried out to evaluate the diagnostic tools and to study pathogenesis of Mi infection. Field studies and experimental infection of embryonated eggs indicated both synergistic and competitive interaction of mycoplasma pathogens in mixed infection. The value of the PCR diagnostic tests for following the time course of egg transmission was shown. A workable serological test (Dot Immunobinding Assay) was also developed but there was no clear-cut evidence that infected turkeys develop an immune response. Typing of a wide spectrum of Mi field isolates by a variety of gene-based molecular techniques indicated a higher degree of genetic homogeneity than predicted on the basis of the phenotypic variability. All known strains of Mi were detected by the method developed. Together with an M. meleagridis-PCR test based on the same gene, the Multi-species PCR test is a highly valuable tool for diagnosis of pathogenic mycoplasmas in single or mixed infection. The further application of this rapid and specific test as a part of Mi and overall mycoplasma control programs will be dependent on developments in the turkey industry.