Nature Communications (Aug 2017)

An early mechanical coupling of planktonic bacteria in dilute suspensions

  • Simon Sretenovic,
  • Biljana Stojković,
  • Iztok Dogsa,
  • Rok Kostanjšek,
  • Igor Poberaj,
  • David Stopar

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00295-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Planktonic bacteria are untethered to surfaces or to each other, and thus are expected to move independently when at low cell densities. Here Sretenovic et al. show, using optical tweezers, that bacteria in dilute suspensions are mechanically coupled and show long-range correlated motion.