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In this fluid dynamics video, we demonstrate the microscale mixing enhancement of passive tracer particles in suspensions of swimming microalgae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. These biflagellated, single-celled eukaryotes (10 micron diameter)…
Particles such as microplastics and phytoplankton suspended in the water column in the natural environment are often subject to the action of surface gravity waves. By modelling such anisotropic particles as small spheroids that slowly…
We review the dynamical behavior of giant fluid vesicles in various types of external hydrodynamic flow. The interplay between stresses arising from membrane elasticity, hydrodynamic flows, and the ever present thermal fluctuations leads to…
When a solid body floats at the interface of a vibrating liquid bath, the relative motion between the object and interface generates outwardly propagating surface waves. It has recently been demonstrated that millimetric objects with…
One approach to quantifying biological diversity consists of characterizing the statistical distribution of specific properties of a taxonomic group or habitat. Microorganisms living in fluid environments, and for whom motility is key,…
Motility is a fundamental survival strategy of bacteria to navigate porous environments. Swimming cells thrive in quiescent wetlands and sediments at the bottom of the marine water column, where they mediate many essential biogeochemical…
Three-dimensional simulations with fully resolved hydrodynamics are performed to study the collective motion of model swimmers in confinement. We show that certain swimming mechanisms can lead to traveling wave-like collective motion even…
Active swimmers are ubiquitous in nature, found in many diverse biological systems ranging from bacteria to vertebrate fish. Of particular importance are sperm cells which are swimmers that are crucial for the survival of many species…
We present a mathematical model of lophotrichous bacteria, motivated by Pseudomonas putida, which swim through fluid by rotating a cluster of multiple flagella extended from near one pole of the cell body. Although the flagella rotate…
Active matter exhibits various forms of non-equilibrium states in the absence of external forcing, including macroscopic steady-state currents. Such states are often too complex to be modelled from first principles and our understanding of…
Study of the locomotion of a centipede (L. forficatus) at the air-water interface reveals that it does not predominantly use its 14 leg pairs to locomote; unlike most swimmers which propagate head-to-tail body bending waves, this species…
Cilia and flagella are hairlike organelles that propel cells through fluid. The active motion of the axoneme, the motile structure inside cilia and flagella, is powered by molecular motors of the dynein family. These motors generate forces…
Colonies of the green alga $Volvox$ are spheres that swim through the beating of pairs of flagella on their surface somatic cells. The somatic cells themselves are mounted rigidly in a polymeric extracellular matrix, fixing the orientation…
The flexibility of the bacterial flagellar hook is believed to have substantial consequences for microorganism locomotion. Using a simplified model of a rigid flagellum and a flexible hook, we show that the paths of axisymmetric cell bodies…
We demonstrate with experiments and simulations how microscopic self-propelled particles navigate through environments presenting complex spatial features, which mimic the conditions inside cells, living organisms and future lab-on-a-chip…
The recent interest in using microorganisms for biofuels is motivation enough to study bioconvection and cell dispersion in tubes subject to imposed flow. To optimize light and nutrient uptake, many microorganisms swim in directions biased…
Natural swimmers usually perform undulations to propel themselves and perform a range of maneuvers. These include various biological species ranging from micro-sized organisms to large-sized fishes that undulate at typical kinematic…
When attracted by a stimulus (e. g. light), microswimmers can build up very densely at a constriction and thus cause clogging. The micro-alga \textit{Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii} is used here as a model system to study this phenomenon. Its…
A flexible membrane deforming its shape in time can self-propel in a viscous fluid. Alternatively, if the membrane is anchored, its deformation will lead to fluid transport. Past work in this area focused on situations where the deformation…
We investigate how light polarization affects the motion of photo-responsive algae, \textit{Euglena gracilis}. In a uniformly polarized field, cells swim approximately perpendicular to the polarization direction and form a nematic state…