Motile bacteria are known to accumulate at surfaces, eventually leading to changes in bacterial motility and bio-film formation. We use a novel two-colour, three-dimensional Lagrangian tracking technique, to follow simultaneously the body and the flagella of a wild-type Escherichiacoli. We observe long surface residence times and surface escape corresponding mostly to immediately antecedent tumbling. A motility model accounting for a large behavioural variability in run-time duration, reproduces all experimental findings and gives new insights into surface trapping efficiency.
@article{arxiv.2107.11123,
title = {Run-to-Tumble Variability Controls the Surface Residence Times of ${\it E.~coli}$ Bacteria},
author = {Gaspard Junot and Thierry Darnige and Anke Lindner and Vincent A. Martinez and Jochen Arlt and Angela Dawson and Wilson C. K. Poon and Harold Auradou and Eric Clément},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.11123},
year = {2022}
}