Bacterial swimming and oxygen transport near contact lines.
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.
Tuval
Idan
I
Institut Mediterrani d'Estudis Avançats, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Universitat de les Illes Balears, E-07071 Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
Cisneros
Luis
L
Dombrowski
Christopher
C
Wolgemuth
Charles W
CW
Kessler
John O
JO
Goldstein
Raymond E
RE
D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000502:physiology*; D002633:Chemotaxis; D008954:Models, Biological; D009068:Movement; D010101:Oxygen Consumption; D014783:Viscosity