Videos

Paramecium swimming near a wall

June 2, 2010
Abstract
Most micro-organisms often swim in a variety of complex environments as their natural habitat. For instance, Paramecium tend to congregate and swim near the boundaries. We investigate the locomotion of Paramecium in confined geometries while comparing its motion in the un-bounded fluid. A modified theoretical model based on Taylor’s sheet is developed to study the boundary effect on its motion. During experiments, we introduce Paramecium in capillary tubes of different sizes and measure the influence of the tube diameter on the swimming velocity. The data from the experiments is compared with the theoretical model to test its validity and understand the ciliary locomotion of organisms in a confined channel.