Fig. 3.

Performance landscapes for putative tasks critical to curved-rod bacteria: Swimming Efficiency ${\mathrm{\Psi }}_{swim}^n$ (A), Chemotactic SNR ${\mathrm{\Psi }}_{chemo}^n$ (B), and body shape Construction Ease ${\mathrm{\Psi }}_{constr}^n$ (C). In each case, performance (pseudocolor and contours) is normalized relative to that of a spherical body, i.e., ${\mathrm{\Psi }}^n=\mathrm{\Psi }/{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{\left(\mathrm{ℒ}=1,\mathcal{K}=0\right)}$, and is thus dimensionless and scale-invariant (SI Appendix, section 10.2). In addition to selected shapes for reference (gray), performance maxima within our morphospace are shown (black); in A, these include both the global and a local maximum (see text).