image: Bacteria foraging in turbulent ocean waters. High concentrations are shown in red, lower concentrations are blue and partially transparent. Many marine bacteria have the ability to forage for food by preferentially swimming towards high concentrations of nutrients through a process known as chemotaxis. When nutrient patches are released by larger organisms, they quickly become stirred by small turbulent eddies and whirls. As seen in this image, motile bacteria cluster around the nutrient patches, forming a complex network of filaments. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Nov. 2, 2012, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by John R. Taylor at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, UK, and Roman Stocker at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., was titled, "Trade-Offs of Chemotactic Foraging in Turbulent Water." view more
Credit: Image courtesy of John R. Taylor and Roman Stocker