Transient surface hydration impacts biogeography and intercellular interactions of non-motile bacteria.

ABSTRACT: There are many hydrated surface niches that are neither static nor continuously flowing that are colonized by microbes such as bacteria. Such periodic hydrodynamic regimes are distinct from aquatic systems where microbial dissemination is reasonably predicted by assuming continuous flow or static systems where motile microbes largely control their own fate. Here we show how non-motile bacteria exhibit rapid, dispersive bursts of movement over surfaces using transient confluent hydration from the environment, which we term "surface hydrodispersion" where cells traverse thousands of cell lengths within minutes. The fraction of the population disseminated by surface hydrodispersion is small-on order of 1 cell per million. Thus, surface hydrodispersion can promote isolated distribution of sing

SUBMITTER: Weaver AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8091113 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature