COMPUTER-ASSISTED VIDEO MOTION ANALYSIS - A POWERFUL TECHNIQUE FOR INVESTIGATING MOTILITY AND CHEMOTAXIS

Motility and chemotaxis play vital roles in the ecology of bacterial populations. Most methods used for studying these behaviors are quite time consuming and do not allow assessment of swimming and chemotactic behavior of individual cells. Computer-assisted video motion analysis (CAVMA) offers a precise, efficient alternative to these methods. CAVMA digitizes videomicroscope recordings, allowing estimation of motility parameters such as speed, rate of change in direction and net to gross displacement ratio. By examining the relationships between these parameters one can determine the nature of the response of an organism to a stimulus and quantify changes in behavior rapidly and accurately.