Fig. 8: Effect of initial nutrient concentration on biofilm growth dynamics and the onset of buckling.

a Average expansion rate, \({\dot{R}}_{{\rm{avg}}}=\left({R}_{{\rm{cr}}}-{R}_{0}\right)/{t}_{{cr}}\) as a function of \({C}_{0}\). (b) \({t}_{{\rm{cr}}}\) vs. \({C}_{0}\). (c) \({R}_{{cr}}\) vs. \({C}_{0}\). Markers are colored to distinguish the two wrinkling regimes with blue corresponding to “edge-first” and red to “center-first”. The dashed lines serve only as visual guides. All results shown in this figure correspond to simulations where \({\rm{\gamma }}=9.2\,{\rm{\mu }}{\rm{J}}\,{{\rm{m}}}^{-2}\) and \({D}_{{\rm{b}}}^{\mathrm{on}}=36\,{\rm{n}}{{\rm{m}}}^{2}\,{{\rm{h}}}^{-1}\).