Figure 5. Maximum entropy cell packing generates a consistent and predictable life cycle in snowflake yeast.

(A) Distribution of total cluster volume for 3000 simulated snowflake clusters, each with $N=100$ cells. The total volume is divided by the minimum possible volume $N{v}_c$. The k-gamma distribution (black line, $k=23.0,r_{RMS}=0.0043$) provides a good description of the data. (B) Distribution of all experimental Voronoi volumes (black circles) and the maximum entropy prediction (black line). The vertical black dashed line is the critical Voronoi volume $v^{*}=2.02$ predicted from simulations. Orange filled region integrates up to $p^{*}$ the probability that any one cell occupies a volume less than $v^{*}$. Insets: sequential brightfield microscope images of one yeast cluster undergoing group fragmentation. White arrowhead indicates location of fracture point. The images measure $150\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{m}$ across from top to bottom. (C), Experimentally measured yeast cluster size distribution (solid black line) along with the prediction from weakest link theory (orange line). Gray region represents $1\sigma$ confidence bounds on the measured distribution from estimating the number of cells in a group. (D), Coefficient of variation in group radius ($\sigma /\overline{R}$) for snowflake groups (S) and flocculating groups (F). Data from Pentz et al., 2020.