Number 1 pp. The myxobacteria are ubiquitous soil bacteria which aggregate under starvation conditions and build fruiting bodies to survive. Until recently the mechanisms of their social gliding, aggregation, and fruiting body formation have not been well understood. In this paper a stochastic cellular automaton model is presented to describe and provide an understanding of how the bacteria manage to build higher organized structures. In the automaton myxobacteria move on a square grid with periodic boundary conditions.
Simulations show the interdependence of the different mechanisms which finally cause aggregation.
A simplified version of this model is formally approximated by a system of partial differential equations, a chemotaxis system. 35Q80, 65C99 PII .