Paramecium swimming in capillary tube
Swimming organisms in their natural habitat navigate through a wide array of geometries and chemical environments. Interaction with the boundaries is ubiquitous and can significantly modify the swimming characteristics of the organism as observed under ideal conditions. We study the dynamics of ciliary locomotion in Paramecium multimicronucleatum and observe the effect of the solid boundaries on the velocities in the near field of the organism. Experimental observations show that Paramecium executes helical trajectories that slowly transition to straight line motion as the diameter of the capillary tubes decrease. Theoretically this system is modeled as an undulating cylinder with pressure gradient and compared with experiments; showing that such considerations are necessary for modeling finite sized organisms in the restrictive geometries.