Comparative hydrodynamics of bacterial polymorphism

TL;DR

This study analyzes the hydrodynamic efficiencies of all twelve bacterial flagellar polymorphic forms, revealing that the normal form is the most efficient, which may have influenced its evolutionary prevalence.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of the hydrodynamic efficiencies of bacterial flagellar polymorphs, highlighting the optimality of the normal form across different bacterial types.

Findings

Normal polymorph is the most hydrodynamically efficient form.

Efficiency advantage is robust to changes in flagellum diameter or length.

Fluid mechanics may have influenced the evolution of bacterial flagella.

Abstract

Most bacteria swim through fluids by rotating helical flagella which can take one of twelve distinct polymorphic shapes. The most common helical waveform is the "normal" form, used during forward swimming runs. To shed light on the prevalence of the normal form in locomotion, we gather all available experimental measurements of the various polymorphic forms and compute their intrinsic hydrodynamic efficiencies. The normal helical form is found to be the most hydrodynamically efficient of the twelve polymorphic forms by a significant margin - a conclusion valid for both the peritrichous and polar flagellar families, and robust to a change in the effective flagellum diameter or length. The hydrodynamic optimality of the normal polymorph suggests that, although energetic costs of locomotion are small for bacteria, fluid mechanical forces may have played a significant role in the evolution of the flagellum.