As the world watches the Olympics, the journal Nature Microbiology hosted the Microbial Olympics.
Here are some highlights from this year’s Microbial Olympics events:
(1) Synchronized swarming: Swarming is a coordinated movement of bacterial populations to spread out over solid or semi-solid surfaces. Swarming speeds are comparable to swimming speeds in the same organism. In the synchronized swarming competition, bacterial populations are judged on how quickly they swarm on a semi-solid agar surface. Bacterial populations start in the middle of the surface and move outwards to the finish line. The medalists for this event are the well known swarmers, Vibrio parahaemolyticus (gold), Proteus mirabilis (silver) and Bacillus subtilis (bronze).
(2) Canoe slalom: Canoe slalom tests the bacterium’s ability to swim in liquid environments. In microbial canoe slalom, the cell body acts as the canoe and the motility appendages act as the paddles. Bacterial motility apparatuses takes on many forms such as the flagella (tail-like propellers that moves the bacteria forward) or the pili (small hair-like appendages covering the bacterial cell surface). The gold medalist of this event is Vibrio coralliilyticus due not just to swimming speed, but to its impeccable control in swimming direction. The silver medal went to Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis who can swim an average of 40 body lengths per second. The third place finish goes to Xylella fastidiosa who uses pili to grab on the bottom surface to haul itself forward.
So with that, I wanted to juxtapose how the Microbial Olympians compare to the 2016 Rio Olympians.
In the 200M IM, Phelps won gold with a time of 1:54:66. At 1.93 meters tall, that averages to 0.9 body lengths per second. This compares to the 66-82 microns per second swimming speed of V. coralliilyticus. At a tiny 1.2-1.5 microns in length, this is approximately 44 – 68 body lengths per second!
Swimming isn’t the most efficient form of human motility. So how does running compare with bacterial swimming motility? Let’s look at Usain Bolt. He holds the current 100M world record at 9.58 seconds. At 1.96 meters tall, his 100M record is the equivalence of 5.3 body lengths per second.
Happy Olympics watching everyone!
