0310097 Smith The proposed project evaluates the significance of chemotaxis in porous media. Chemotaxis essentially means that bacteria swim towards higher concentrations. Thus, chemotaxis could have a significant influence on bacterial concentrations in contaminated groundwater systems. The project proposes to evaluate chemotaxis of a pure culture of Pseudomonas putida in response to TCE gradients. The bacteria will be labeled with paramagnetic particles to make them visible for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 1-D or 2-D column experiments. P. putida cannot use TCE as a growth medium and a basic assumption of this proposal is that the effect of growth and decay can be neglected. Mathematical modeling will be used as a basis to interpret experimental results.
