An Analytic-Synthetic Approach Combining Mathematical Modeling and Experiments – Towards an Understanding of Biofilm Systems

Biofilms – microbial communities on interfaces – are of central importance in nature, technosphere and also for human life. The processes underlying biofilm development, however, are currently poorly understood. The aim of this essay is to combine mathematical modeling and experimental methods in close interaction in order to shed light onto the coherences determining biofilm development in time and in space. Therefore, recent mathematical modeling tools come to application which allow prognoses about the behavior of biofilm systems. These prognoses are quantitatively compared with results of biofilm cultivations under comparable conditions. This leads to a better understanding of the processes and yields improvements on the experimental side as well as in terms of the model assumptions. These results bring the focus of this work to the detailed investigation of biofilm detachment phenomena. Here, a mechanical approach is presented regarding the interaction of fluid dynamics and biofilm structure.