Speaker
Ricard Alert
(Universitat de Barcelona)
Description
Many bacteria inhabit hydrated environments like soil, textiles and agar hydrogels in the lab. In these environments, cells are surrounded by a water meniscus. First, I will show that the resulting capillary forces organize bacterial colonies, enabling cells to aggregate into densely packed nematic layers while still allowing them to slide past one another. Second, I will show that, when these bacterial colonies form thick multilayered films, they exhibit active surface waves. These results suggest that capillary forces may be a ubiquitous physical ingredient in shaping microbial communities in partially hydrated environments.
Primary author
Ricard Alert
(Universitat de Barcelona)
