The energetics and scaling of search strategies in bacteria. Mitchell, J. G. The American Naturalist, 160(6):727--740, December, 2002.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
The influence of body size on the energetic cost of movement is well studied in animals but has been rarely investigated in bacteria. Here, I calculate the cost of four chemotactic strategies for different-sized bacteria by adding the costs of their locomotion and reorientation. Size differences of 0.1 microm result in 100,000-fold changes in the energetic cost of chemotaxis. The exact cost for any given size is a nonlinear function of flagella length, the minimum speed necessary to detect and respond to a signal, and the gradient of the signal. These parameters are interlinked in such a way that body size and strategy are tightly coupled to particular environmental gradients, offering avenues for explaining and exploring diversity and competition. The analysis here has implications beyond bacteria. Power-law regression through the minimum costs of transport for different kinds of chemotaxis has the same slope as that for swimming animals, suggesting a universal allometric equation for all swimming organisms.
@article{mitchell_energetics_2002,
	title = {The energetics and scaling of search strategies in bacteria},
	volume = {160},
	issn = {1537-5323},
	doi = {10.1086/343874},
	abstract = {The influence of body size on the energetic cost of movement is well studied in animals but has been rarely investigated in bacteria. Here, I calculate the cost of four chemotactic strategies for different-sized bacteria by adding the costs of their locomotion and reorientation. Size differences of 0.1 microm result in 100,000-fold changes in the energetic cost of chemotaxis. The exact cost for any given size is a nonlinear function of flagella length, the minimum speed necessary to detect and respond to a signal, and the gradient of the signal. These parameters are interlinked in such a way that body size and strategy are tightly coupled to particular environmental gradients, offering avenues for explaining and exploring diversity and competition. The analysis here has implications beyond bacteria. Power-law regression through the minimum costs of transport for different kinds of chemotaxis has the same slope as that for swimming animals, suggesting a universal allometric equation for all swimming organisms.},
	language = {eng},
	number = {6},
	journal = {The American Naturalist},
	author = {Mitchell, James G.},
	month = dec,
	year = {2002},
	pmid = {18707461},
	pages = {727--740}
}

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