Motility of Colonial Choanoflagellates and the Statistics of Aggregate Random Walkers
Julius B. Kirkegaard, Alan O. Marron, Raymond E. Goldstein

TL;DR
This paper investigates the three-dimensional random walk behavior of colonial choanoflagellates, revealing that their stochastic flagellar beating results in helical swimming patterns, with a quantitative theory explaining species variability.
Contribution
It provides the first detailed analysis of aggregate random walkers in microorganisms, linking stochastic flagellar motion to their swimming behavior and developing a quantitative model.
Findings
Flagellar beating is stochastic and uncorrelated among individuals.
The combined propulsion results in stochastic helical swimming.
A quantitative theory explains variability across species.
Abstract
We illuminate the nature of the three-dimensional random walks of microorganisms composed of individual organisms adhered together. Such are typified by choanoflagellates, eukaryotes that are the closest living relatives of animals. In the colony-forming species we show that the beating of each flagellum is stochastic and uncorrelated with others, and the vectorial sum of the flagellar propulsion manifests as stochastic helical swimming. A quantitative theory for these results is presented and species variability discussed.
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