Decoding biological navigation at the microscale

Kirsty Wan (University of Exeter, UK)

How do single cells and small aquatic organisms coordinate complex behaviours and navigate their world with little or no centralised control? In this talk, I will explore how diverse microscale motility and navigation strategies emerge from the interplay between coordinated actuators, such as travelling (“metachronal”) waves of cilia and flagella, and the external physical environment. We adopt an integrative approach connecting sub-cellular dynamics to whole-organism motility and behaviour across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Combining quantitative live imaging, micro–manipulation experiments, single-cell trajectory tracking, computational and physical modelling, we reveal how distinct motility strategies give rise to directed movement in both 2D and 3D. We also examine how symmetry-breaking processes contribute to steering and adaptive responses to external stimuli, such as light or chemicals. We develop a generalised framework to study and simulate microswimmers to examine the functional ecology of their motility patterns, allowing us to predict the impact of key variables such as body morphology, appendage number, or actuation dynamics. This multiscale approach helps yield general principles of locomotion control in active matter systems.