A multiscale 3D chemotaxis assay reveals bacterial navigation mechanisms

How bacteria navigate environmental chemical gradients has implications ranging from health to climate science. The underlying behavioral mechanisms are unknown for most species due to a lack in techniques bridging scales from individual 3D motility behavior to the statistical power required to assess the resulting performance. We present the first demonstration of such a multiscale 3D chemotaxis assay and reveal that Caulobacter crescentus chemotaxis breaks with the Escherichia coli paradigm.