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. 2016 Nov 30;6:37969. doi: 10.1038/srep37969

Figure 3. Spontaneous emergence and expansion of life-like structures into a density-regulated ecosystem.

Figure 3

(A–G) Ordered structures appear, persist, replicate and spread from a randomly distributed and randomly oriented set of 5000 particles in 250 × 250 space units (0.08 p/su), observed for 106 time steps. The emerging structures change the local density of particles, which is also expressed by particle colors. (H) Population dynamics of cells and spores follow a logistic (sigmoidal) growth pattern to which we modeled (minimum squared residuals) a classical macroscopic model of biological density-dependent growth19. Populations of cells and spores were analyzed from the number of blue/yellow and pink particles, based on the mean sizes of those structures (Supplementary Figure S3). (I–J) Observed rates of change of particles in the different local density states (color coded) during the growth phase of the sigmoidal growth (blue figure background) and during the saturated phase (yellow figure background). This represents a microscopic model of the emerging structures internal “physiological network”.