Flagellar cooperativity and collective motion in sperm

Abstract

Sperm have thin structures known as flagella whose motion must be regulated in order to reach the egg for fertilization. Large numbers of sperm are typically needed in this process and some species have sperm that exhibit collective or aggregate motion when swimming in groups. The purpose of this study is to model planar motion of flagella in groups to explore how collective motion may arise in three-dimensional fluid environments. We use the method of regularized Stokeslets and a three-dimensional preferred curvature model to simulate groups of undulating flagella, where flagellar waveforms are modulated via hydrodynamic coupling with other flagella and surfaces. We find that collective motion of free-swimming flagella is an unstable phenomenon in long-term simulations unless there is an external mechanism to keep flagella near each other. However, there is evidence that collective swimming can result in significant gains in velocity and efficiency. With the addition of an ability for sperm to attach and swim together as a group, velocities and efficiencies can be increased even further, which may indicate why some species have evolved mechanisms that enable collective swimming and cooperative behavior in sperm.