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Updated: Jun 14, 2026

Generating Controlled, Dynamic Chemical Landscapes to Study Microbial Behavior
Published on: January 31, 2020
Dynamics of enhanced tracer diffusion in suspensions of swimming eukaryotic microorganisms
Kyriacos C Leptos1, Jeffrey S Guasto, J P Gollub
1Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
In contexts such as suspension feeding in marine ecologies there is an interplay between brownian motion of nonmotile particles and their advection by flows from swimming microorganisms. As a laboratory realization, we study passive tracers in suspensions of eukaryotic swimmers, the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. While the cells behave ballistically over short intervals, the tracers behave diffusively, with a time-dependent but self-similar probability distribution function of displacements consisting of a gaussian core and robust exponential tails. We emphasize the role of flagellar beating in creating oscillatory flows that exceed brownian motion far from each swimmer.
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