Abstract
The authors thank SGIker of UPV/EHU, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and the European Social Fund (ESF) for technical and human support. M.L. thanks Dr. Gerard O’Connor (NUI Galway, Ireland) for beneficial scientific discussions related to this work. A.L. and M.L. thank Gillian Murphy (NUI Galway) for maintenance/ extraction of coccoliths. M.L. is grateful for the help and input of his student, David Shumate (Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA, USA). M.L. is also very thankful for support received from PreSens Precision Sensing GmbH (Regensburg, Germany) regarding proper handling and use of the oxygen and temperature probes and data analysis. M.L. would particularly like to thank Pierce Lalor, Dr. Emma McDermott, and Dr. Eadaoin Timmins (NUI Galway) for invaluable support with electron microscopy. Additionally, the authors acknowledge the aforementioned for access to facilities and the scientific and technical assistance kindly offered by the experts of the Centre for Microscopy & Imaging at the National University of Ireland Galway (www.imaging.nuigalway.ie). We also acknowledge Drawinginc (https://drawinginc.ie/) and Maciej Doczyk for support with preparation of the schematics. Anthony Sloan is recognized for help with language edits. Finally, we acknowledge the editorial assistance of Dr. Raghvendra Bohara. This publication has emanated from research supported in part by a grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under grant 13/RC/2073_P2. A.L. and J.R.S. are thankful for funding from the Basque Government, Department of Education (IT-927-16). A.L. acknowledges the Basque Government for a postdoctoral grant (POS_2014_1_26). Support from the Spanish Ministry of Industry and Competitiveness for project MAT 2013-45559-P is also acknowledged. A.P., C.R.-E., and J.R.S. would like to acknowledge funding from the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action iPROMEDAI project (TD1305). M.L. gratefully acknowledges his Early Postdoctoral Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (P2BSP3_174974).
Highlights
One of the most fundamental questions in science is what defines life.[1]
SUMMARY Translating energy into swarming motion for miniature entities remains a challenge. This translation requires simultaneously breaking the symmetry of the system to enable locomotion and a coupling effect between the objects that are part of the population to induce the collective motion
We report on Robocoliths, engineered Emiliania huxleyi (EHUX) coccolith-based miniature hybrid entities capable of swarming behavior
Summary
One of the most fundamental questions in science is what defines life.[1] Collective motion is one of the hallmarks of life.[2] This is commonly observed in nature at various dimensional levels as energized entities gather, in a concerted effort, into motile aggregated patterns These motile aggregated events can be noticed, among many others, as dynamic swarms; e.g., unicellular organisms such as bacteria, locust swarms, or the flocking behavior of birds.[3,4,5] In contrast to what is accomplished individually, multiple entities enable local interactions between each participant to occur in proximity. If we consider each participant in the collective behavior as a (bio)physical transducer, the energy will be converted from one type into another. The proxemics will favor enhanced communication between neighboring individuals via transduction of energy, leading to dynamic and complex synergetic behaviors of the composite powered structure.[6]
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