TY  - JOUR
A1  - Theves, Matthias
A1  - Taktikos, J.
A1  - Zaburdaev, V.
A1  - Stark, H.
A1  - Beta, Carsten
T1  - Random walk patterns of a soil bacterium in open and confined environments
T2  - epl : a letters journal exploring the frontiers of physics
N2  - We used microfluidic tools and high-speed time-lapse microscopy to record trajectories of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida in a confined environment with cells swimming in close proximity to a glass-liquid interface. While the general swimming pattern is preserved, when compared to swimming in the bulk fluid, our results show that cells in the presence of two solid boundaries display more frequent reversals in swimming direction and swim faster. Additionally, we observe that run segments are no longer straight and that cells swim on circular trajectories, which can be attributed to the hydrodynamic wall effect. Using the experimentally observed parameters together with a recently presented analytic model for a run-reverse random walker, we obtained additional insight on how the spreading behavior of a cell population is affected under confinement. While on short time scales, the mean square displacement of confined swimmers grows faster as compared to the bulk fluid case, our model predicts that for large times the situation reverses due to the strong increase in effective rotational diffusion.
Y1  - 2015
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/39382
SN  - 0295-5075
SN  - 1286-4854
VL  - 109
IS  - 2
PB  - EDP Sciences
CY  - Mulhouse
ER  -