title: Bacterial swimming and oxygen transport near contact lines.
abstract: Aerobic bacteria often live in thin fluid layers near solid-air-water contact lines, in which the biology of chemotaxis, metabolism, and cell-cell signaling is intimately connected to the physics of buoyancy, diffusion, and mixing. Using the geometry of a sessile drop, we demonstrate in suspensions of Bacillus subtilis the self-organized generation of a persistent hydrodynamic vortex that traps cells near the contact line. Arising from upward oxygentaxis and downward gravitational forcing, these dynamics are related to the Boycott effect in sedimentation and are explained quantitatively by a mathematical model consisting of oxygen diffusion and consumption, chemotaxis, and viscous fluid dynamics. The vortex is shown to advectively enhance uptake of oxygen into the suspension, and the wedge geometry leads to a singularity in the chemotactic dynamics near the contact line.
authors.affiliation: Institut Mediterrani d'Estudis Avançats, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Universitat de les Illes Balears, E-07071 Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
authors.forename: Idan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tuval
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cisneros
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dombrowski
authors.forename: Charles W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Wolgemuth
authors.forename: John O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Kessler
authors.forename: Raymond E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Goldstein
mesh_terms: D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000502:physiology*; D002633:Chemotaxis; D008954:Models, Biological; D009068:Movement; D010101:Oxygen Consumption; D014783:Viscosity