English: Schematics (not to scale) of different swimming strategies. Run and tumble from Escherichia coli; forward, reverse, and turning by buckling of Vibrio alginolyticus (adapted from Son et al., 2013); stop and coil from Rhodobacter sphaeroides (adapted from Armitage and Macnab, 1987; Armitage et al., 1999); push, pull, and wrap from Pseudomonas putida (adapted from Hintsche et al., 2017).

The direction of bacteria movement is indicated by the arrows.

References:

• Son, K., Guasto, J. S., and Stocker, R. (2013). Bacteria can exploit a flagellar buckling instability to change direction. Nat. Phys. 9, 494–498. doi: 10.1038/nphys2676
• Armitage, J. P., and Macnab, R. M. (1987). Unidirectional, intermittent rotation of the flagellum of Rhodobacter sphaeroides. J. Bacteriol. 169, 514–518. doi: 10.1128/jb.169.2.514-518.1987
• Armitage, J. P., Pitta, T. P., Vigeant, M. A., Packer, H. L., and Ford, R. M. (1999). Transformations in flagellar structure of Rhodobacter sphaeroides and possible relationship to changes in swimming speed. J. Bacteriol. 181, 4825–4833.
• Hintsche, M., Waljor, V., Großmann, R., Kühn, M. J., Thormann, K. M., Peruani, F., et al. (2017). A polar bundle of flagella can drive bacterial swimming by pushing, pulling, or coiling around the cell body. Sci. Rep. 7:16771. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-16428-9