Morphological Diversity of the Colony Produced by Bacteria Proteus mirabilis

Abstract

Morphological changes of colonies have been investigated for a bacterial strain of Proteus mirabilis, which is a famous species for producing concentric-ring-like colonies. It was found that colony patterns can be classified into three types, i.e., cyclic spreading, diffusion-limited growth (DLA-like) and three-dimensional growth (inside the agar medium) patterns. Cyclic spreading patterns can further be classified into three subgroups, i.e., concentric-ring, homogeneous and spatiotemporal patterns. These subgroups were classified by examining the development of colony structure after colonies spread all over petri-dishes. Comparison of the results with those of another bacterial species Bacillus subtilis is also discussed.