Bioconvective dynamics: dependence on organism behaviour

Bioconvection occurs when a macroscopic nonuniformity of the concentration of microbial populations is generated and maintained by the directional swimming of the organisms. This study investigated the properties of the patterns near the onset of the instability and later during its evolution into a fully nonlinear convection regime. In suspensions of the bacteria Bacillus subtilis, which tend to swim upwards in a gradient of oxygen concentration that they create by consumption, we discovered that the dominant wavelength at the onset of the instability is determined primarily by the cell density and is influenced only weakly by the fluid depth. This observation contrasts strongly with previous observations on the gravitactic alga Chlamydomonas nivalis, in which the opposite dependence was found. Considerable differences were also found in the long-term evolution of the convection patterns. These results demonstrate the existence of readily distinguishable types of bioconvection systems, even at early stages of the instability. The observed differences are clearly and causally correlated with disparate reasons for upward swimming by these micro-organisms, leading to different geometric distributions of the density of the suspension.