Geometric phase predicts locomotion performance in undulating living systems across scales.

ABSTRACT: Self-propelling organisms locomote via generation of patterns of self-deformation. Despite the diversity of body plans, internal actuation schemes and environments in limbless vertebrates and invertebrates, such organisms often use similar traveling waves of axial body bending for movement. Delineating how self-deformation parameters lead to locomotor performance (e.g. speed, energy, turning capabilities) remains challenging. We show that a geometric framework, replacing laborious calculation with a diagrammatic scheme, is well-suited to discovery and comparison of effective patterns of wave dynamics in diverse living systems. We focus on a regime of undulatory locomotion, that of highly damped environments, which is applicable not only to small organisms in viscous fluids, but also larger

SUBMITTER: Rieser JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11181092 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature