Distribution of fitness effects of cross-species transformation reveals potential for fast adaptive evolution.

Bacterial transformation, a common mechanism of horizontal gene transfer, can speed up adaptive evolution. How its costs and benefits depend on the growth environment is poorly understood. Here, we characterize the distributions of fitness effects (DFE) of transformation in different conditions and test whether they predict in which condition transformation is beneficial.

Synchronization dynamics of mobile oscillators in the presence of coupling delays.

Individual biological oscillators can synchronize to generate a collective rhythm. During vertebrate development, mobile cells exchange signals to synchronize a rhythmic pattern generator that makes the embryonic segments. Previous theoretical works have shown that cell mobility can enhance synchronization of coupled oscillators when signal exchange is instantaneous.

Information flow in the presence of cell mixing and signaling delays during embryonic development.

Embryonic morphogenesis is organized by an interplay between intercellular signaling and cell movements. Both intercellular signaling and cell movement involve multiple timescales. A key timescale for signaling is the time delay caused by preparation of signaling molecules and integration of received signals into cells' internal state.

Mobility-induced persistent chimera states.

We study the dynamics of mobile, locally coupled identical oscillators in the presence of coupling delays. We find different kinds of chimera states in which coherent in-phase and antiphase domains coexist with incoherent domains. These chimera states are dynamic and can persist for long times for intermediate mobility values.