Fig. 5.

Long-range cargo transport shapes a microbial community. (A) A microbial community containing fluorescently labeled bacteria. Eight bacteria (seven nonmotile and one motile) of the human microbiome attained a shape in which the nonmotile bacteria were organized in islands by the swarming bacteria. This is a still image from Movie S13. (B) A control in which the experiment of A was repeated with de-energized cells of C. gingivalis. (Scale bar: 5 µm.) Experiments done at 37 °C on an agar pad. (C) Twenty-minute trajectories of the displacement of nonmotile bacteria showing that the swarming microbe transports nonmotile bacteria over long distances. (D) Time-lapse images taken at intervals of 1 min of a small region from Movie S13 showing that dynamically forming polymicrobial aggregates of nonmotile bacteria move long distances in a swarm.