Investigating how the collective motion of Turabtrix Aceti propagates inside viscous fluids

Collective motion in microorganisms have emerged as a powerful model for studying emergent behaviors in active matter systems. Vinegar eels (Turbatrix Aceti) are nematodes that display collective swimming behaviors such as filament formation, however their behavior inside viscous fluids is a knowledge gap. This study aims to investigate how Vinegar eels collectively travel in oils. Different oils were layered on top of established protrusions in the nematode solution to provide an interface brake point. These protrusions were designed to direct nematode flow into confined space that promoted collective motion. The nematodes motion dynamics in oil were recorded using a high-resolution camera. The nematodes were measured to a specific density before being spread across the half of a microscope slide, with the specific oil on the other half. Filament features such as filament thickness, length, and velocity were measured using ImageJ software. With the FracLac plugin in ImageJ, we were able to visualize geometric complexity differences in filaments between different oils.

Initial image analysis revealed that the nematode’s ability to penetrate the oil-vinegar interface is dependent on pre-existing irregularities in the oil-vinegar interface. Early results indicate that the initial angle of protrusions heavily influences features of filaments such as velocity, thickness, length, and the density in network-like interactions once all nematodes flow into the oil. These results show that initial interactions are deterministic for visualizing trajectories in viscous fluids.