Related papers: Do small swimmers mix the ocean?
Bacteria can exploit mechanics to display remarkable plasticity in response to locally changing physical and chemical conditions. Compliant structures play a striking role in their taxis behavior, specifically for navigation inside complex…
The locomotion of microorganisms and spermatozoa in complex viscoelastic fluids is of critical importance in many biological processes such as fertilization, infection, and biofilm formation. Depending on their propulsion mechanisms,…
Catalytic microswimmers convert the chemical energy of a fuel into motion, sustaining spatial chemical gradients and fluid flows that drive their propulsion. This leads to unconventional individual behavior and the emergence of collective…
Micron-sized self-propelled (active) particles can be considered as model systems for characterizing more complex biological organisms like swimming bacteria or motile cells. We produce asymmetric microswimmers by soft lithography and study…
Microscale propulsion is integral to numerous biomedical systems, for example biofilm formation and human reproduction, where the surrounding fluids comprise suspensions of polymers. These polymers endow the fluid with non-Newtonian…
We investigate the hydrodynamic interactions between microorganisms swimming at low Reynolds number. By considering simple model swimmers, and combining analytic and numerical approaches, we investigate the time-averaged flow field around a…
We consider the stirring of an inviscid fluid caused by the locomotion of bodies through it. The swimmers are approximated by non-interacting cylinders or spheres moving steadily along straight lines. We find the displacement of fluid…
In addition to enabling movement towards environments with favourable living conditions, swimming by microorganisms has also been linked to enhanced mixing and improved nutrient uptake by their populations. Experimental studies have shown…
Many aquatic microorganisms are able to swim. In natural environments they typically do so in the presence of flows. In recent years it has been shown that the interplay of swimming and flows can give rise to interesting and biologically…
Microswimmers in nature often experience spatial gradients of viscosity. In this work we develop theoretical results for the dynamics of active particles, biological or otherwise, swimming through viscosity gradients. We model the active…
Drifters designed to mimic floating marine debris and small patches of pelagic \emph{Sargassum} were satellite tracked in four regions across the North Atlantic. Though subjected to the same initial conditions at each site, the tracks of…
The motion of particles suspended in environmental turbulence is relevant to many scientific fields, from sediment transport to biological interactions to underwater robotics. At very small scales and simple shapes, we are able to…
We consider the dynamics of micro-sized, asymmetrically-coated thermoresponsive hydrogel ribbons (microgels) under periodic heating and cooling in the confined space between two planar surfaces. As the result of the temperature changes, the…
Using a fluid-particle dynamics approach, we numerically study the effects of hydrodynamic interactions on the collective dynamics of active suspensions within a simple model for bacterial motility: each microorganism is modeled as a…
We study the effect of turbulence on marine life by performing numerical simulations of motile microorganisms, modelled as prolate spheroids, in isotropic homogeneous turbulence. We show that the clustering and patchiness observed in…
We study the dynamics and the statistics of dilute suspensions of gyrotactic swimmers, a model for many aquatic motile microorganisms. By means of extensive numerical simulations of the Navier-Stokes equations at different Reynolds numbers,…
We analyse a simple 'Stokesian squirmer' model for the enhanced mixing due to swimming micro-organisms. The model is based on a calculation of Thiffeault & Childress [Physics Letters A, 374, 3487 (2010), arXiv:0911.5511], where fluid…
The world's oceans are in constant motion, transporting the sun's heat from the equator to the poles, bringing marine life fresh supplies of oxygen and nutrients, and sequestering nearly half of our carbon dioxide emissions since the…
High-frequency wave propagation in near-inertial wave shear has been considered fundamental in setting the spectral character of the oceanic internal wave continuum and for transporting energy to wave-breaking. We compare idealized ray…
Viscoelasticity governs the locomotion strategies of deformable microorganisms, rendering it a fundamental mechanical property of microbial motility and an integral component in the design of envisioned microbots. Recent studies have shown…