  Biofilms are communities of bacteria that exhibit a multitude of multiscale
biomechanical behaviors. Recent experimental advances have lead to
characterizations of these behaviors in terms of measurements of the
viscoelastic moduli of biofilms grown in bioreactors and the fracture and
fragmentation properties of biofilms. These properties are macroscale features
of biofilms; however, a previous work by our group has shown that heterogeneous
microscale features are critical in predicting biofilm rheology. In this paper
we use tools from statistical physics to develop a generative statistical model
of the positions of bacteria in biofilms. We show through simulation that the
macroscopic mechanical properties of biofilms depend on the choice of
microscale spatial model. Our key finding is that a biologically inspired model
of the locations of bacteria in a biofilm is critical to the simulation of
biofilms with realistic in silico mechanical properties and statistical
characteristics.
