Event

Collective behaviors are processes in which large-scale patterns arise from fundamentally local interactions among individuals; in biological systems, these can be organisms, cells, or molecules. A critical open question is how collective behaviors are shaped over both mechanistic and evolutionary time scales by the features of the complex natural environments where they occur. Here I use cellular slime mold aggregation, a classic cellular model for collective behavior, to test how cells behave as a group in spatially complex environments. I developed a novel experimental system that allows us to observe slime mold aggregation in geometrically complex 3D environments using microscopy. In this environment, cell groups show novel behaviors, highlighting how the environment affects both the process and the outcome of collective behavior. Strains differ in their ability to aggregate in the 3D system despite aggregating equally well on agar, indicating that certain cell properties are more critical for aggregation in complex environments. In my experiments, strains that make larger structures in 2D also tend to aggregate better in 3D. Together, my work highlights cellular slime molds as a powerful model to identify generalizable principles for the role of the environment in cellular behavior.