Collective motion in an active suspension of Escherichia coli bacteria

Abstract

We investigate experimentally the emergence of collective motion in the bulk of an active suspension of Escherichia coli bacteria. When increasing the concentration from a dilute to a semi-dilute regime, we observe a continuous crossover from a dynamical cluster regime to a regime of ‘bio-turbulence’ convection patterns. We measure a length scale characterizing the collective motion as a function of the bacteria concentration. For bacteria fully supplied with oxygen, the increase of the correlation length is almost linear with concentration and at the largest concentrations tested, the correlation length could be as large as 24 bacterial body sizes (or 7–8 when including the flagella bundle). In contrast, under conditions of oxygen shortage the correlation length saturates at a value of around 7 body lengths.