Bacteria in the spotlight:
Bacterial community exhibits only counterclockwise movement

The collective motion of self-driven particles is a fascinating area of research in physics and biology. In the case of bacteria, macroscopic behavior emerges through the movement of millions of bacterial cells self-propelled by flagellar rotation.

Here, Daisuke Nakane and colleagues report on the observation of a new mode of collective motion in non-flagellated soil bacterium known as Flavobacterium Johnsonian.

The researchers discovered that when bacterial cells were spotted on an agar plate with a low level of nutrients, the bacterial community exhibited vortex patterns that spontaneously appeared as lattices and integrated into a large-scale circular plate.

Notably, the large-scale circular plate exhibited unidirectional rotation in a counterclockwise manner without exception.

Nakane and his colleagues postulate that “this behavior might be an efficient strategy for cells of this species to find nutrients.”

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