Optimal Census by Quorum Sensing
Fig 2
Quorum-sensing information channel.
A. In this illustration, bacteria engage sequentially in five fictitious collective tasks, represented by five colors, that are homogeneously distributed in time. B. During the growth of a colony, the increasing cell density drives the quorum-sensing system. C. To perform the desired tasks, bacteria need to resolve the five cell-density stages, whose probability is shaped by bacterial growth. D. At fixed cell density, individual bacteria exhibit fluctuating levels of MPs, with mean and variance . E. The smallest difference in cell density that a bacterium can resolve by reading out its fluctuating MP abundance specifies the resolution of the channel, defined as δρ = Σm(ρ)/m′(ρ). Thus, the information available to individual bacteria via quorum sensing depends both on the cell density dynamics and the channel resolution.