Long-range synchronized oscillations in biofilm as a mechanism to compensate colony growth and resilience

Nutrient availability is usually the limiting factor for bacterial growth. In cell communities like biofilms, cells in the periphery have easier access to nutrients and thus are the main drivers of colony growth. At the same time, interior cells only have access to the media that diffuses through the periphery, which means that they are closer to starvation but also more protected to chemical attacks. In that sense, the colony resilience depends on its capacity to limit periphery growth to maintain viable interior cells. We show that collective oscillatory dynamics in growth, driven by metabolic codependency between the two populations, ensures the preservation of interior cells enhancing the colony resilience.