The difference in “”worldviews”" between rimmed and rimless clones is best demonstrated when mixed suspensions or colonies planted close together are forced towards establishing a new body. The rimless partners

segregate in radial clonal sectors from a mixture, and keep separated upon close encounter. On the other hand, two rimmed clones are much closer to each other in interpreting their morphospace than two rimless clones, as they can build a common rim when planted as a mixed suspension or upon close encounters. Torin 2 nmr We have experimentally defined several additional qualitative prerequisites for establishing and maintaining the typical “”body plan”" of bacterial colonies; some of them can be evaluated in the light of our model. The presence of a bacterial body in the neighborhood of a developing colony of F clone results in its quicker ripening, i.e. reddening. Very close encounters lead to disruption of both its growth and pattering: most profound is the effect on colonies planted close to older bodies, or inside ring-bodies. In case of two rimmed partners, the older the neighbor

was, the more profound the growth inhibition of the younger colony, which, nevertheless, remained recognizable even when overgrown by the older partner. Development of geometrically constrained bodies (such as those originated by ring-shaped, elongated or cruciform inocula) can be interpreted as a conflict of two ways of recognizing the “”body”" across the hole: as a part of “”self”" (resulting in a symmetric colony, click here or a colony with a hole, for small rings), or as a neighbor. In ring 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase plantings up to a certain diameter, cells in the inner diameter of the ring are sufficient to produce a “”virtual navel”" controlling the development of the body. In large rings, the “”non-self”"

tendency prevails: such bodies take the inner empty space for outer space outside of their morphogenetic field. New colonies planted into such an area are treated as foreign, and their pattern resembles those planted in the vicinity of other type of bodies. While our model does not currently allow simulating development of multiple inocula differing in genotype (i.e. parameters), size, shape or time of planting, we could at least reproduce the faster ripening and smaller size of two colonies sharing a confined space, compared to a solitary colony. We have also confirmed our previous results [23] showing that the growth of colonies is strongly inhibited, even abolished, if the surrounding area is evenly occupied by “”background”" bacterial bodies – even if their total population (biomass) is much smaller than the colony inoculum. Hence, bacteria in the background emit a signal that efficiently disturbs the organizing potential of the multicellular plant, while keeping the background colonies in an underdeveloped – “”dormant”" – state.