Structural mechanics of filamentous cyanobacteria.

Filamentous cyanobacteria, forming long strands of connected cells, are one of the earliest and most successful forms of life on Earth. They exhibit self-organized behaviour, forming large-scale patterns in structures like biomats and stromatolites. The mechanical properties of these rigid structures have contributed to their biological success and are important to applications like algae-based biofuel production. For active polymers like these cyanobacteria, one of the most important mechanical properties is the bending modulus, or flexural rigidity. Here, we quantify the bending stiffness of three species of filamentous cyanobacteria, of order