From Polar Clusters to Active Nematics: Experimental Signatures of Swarming Dynamics in Bacterial Monolayers

TL;DR

This study explores how bacterial swarms transition from clusters to aligned structures, revealing how cell shape and density influence swarming and biofilm formation.

Contribution

The paper identifies experimental signatures of swarming dynamics and links them to biofilm formation mechanisms in bacterial monolayers.

Findings

At low-to-intermediate densities, bacteria form dynamic clusters influenced by aspect ratio and area fraction.

At higher densities, elongated bacteria align into active nematic states with topological defects.

These findings suggest a nucleation mechanism for multilayer biofilm formation.

Abstract

Bacterial swarms provide a tractable natural model of active matter, where their dynamics illuminate the principles of collective behavior and self-organization phenomena. In particular, the mechanistic and dynamical features of monolayer swarming are critical in driving the transition to multilayer structures at the onset of biofilm formation. Here, we investigate monolayer swarms of Serratia marcescens across varying cell body aspect ratios and area fractions. The results show that at intermediate-to-low densities, bacteria form local dynamic clusters, with the distribution of cluster sizes determined by aspect ratio and area fraction. At higher densities, elongated bacteria align into active nematic states with half-integer topological defects, which point to a potential nucleation mechanism for multilayer formation. These findings provide new physical insights into how cellular morphology and density govern bacterial swarming dynamics and drive the early transition from monolayer swarming to multilayered biofilm development.

Figures