Motility and Phototaxis of $Gonium$, the Simplest Differentiated Colonial Alga

TL;DR

This study investigates how the colonial alga Gonium achieves phototaxis through adaptive flagellar responses, combining experiments and modeling to reveal the coordination of cell-specific behaviors in a simple multicellular organism.

Contribution

It demonstrates that local adaptive flagellar responses in Gonium colonies enable phototaxis, advancing understanding of multicellularity and flagellar coordination without a central nervous system.

Findings

Peripheral cells' adaptive response drives colony reorientation

Flagellar beat variations enhance reorientation dynamics

Gonium achieves phototaxis through local cell responses

Abstract

Green algae of the $Volvocine$ lineage, spanning from unicellular $Chlamydomonas$ to vastly larger $Volvox$, are models for the study of the evolution of multicellularity, flagellar dynamics, and developmental processes. Phototactic steering in these organisms occurs without a central nervous system, driven solely by the response of individual cells. All such algae spin about a body-fixed axis as they swim; directional photosensors on each cell thus receive periodic signals when that axis is not aligned with the light. The flagella of $Chlamydomonas$ and $Volvox$ both exhibit an adaptive response to such signals in a manner that allows for accurate phototaxis, but in the former the two flagella have distinct responses, while the thousands of flagella on the surface of spherical $Volvox$ colonies have essentially identical behaviour. The planar 16-cell species $Gonium~pectorale$ thus presents a conundrum, for its central 4 cells have a $Chlamydomonas$-like beat that provide propulsion normal to the plane, while its 12 peripheral cells generate rotation around the normal through a $Volvox$-like beat. Here, we combine experiment, theory, and computations to reveal how $Gonium$, perhaps the simplest differentiated colonial organism, achieves phototaxis. High-resolution cell tracking, particle image velocimetry of flagellar driven flows, and high-speed imaging of flagella on micropipette-held colonies show how, in the context of a recently introduced model for $Chlamydomonas$ phototaxis, an adaptive response of the peripheral cells alone leads to photo-reorientation of the entire colony. The analysis also highlights the importance of local variations in flagellar beat dynamics within a given colony, which can lead to enhanced reorientation dynamics.