Speaker
Description
Euglenids are flagellated microorganisms whose elongated, flexible bodies enable rich swimming dynamics in confined environments. Focusing on their flagellated mode of locomotion rather than body shape deformations, we construct a simplified hydrodynamic model in which the euglenid is represented as a rigid prolate spheroid and surface slip velocities are imposed over a portion of the body to model the action of the flagellum at one pole. Using a boundary element method, we numerically compute the flow field and resulting swimmer dynamics driven by the squirming activity. We investigate the behavior of these swimmers in both straight and wavy channels, focusing on how confinement and channel geometry influence trajectories, orientations, and migration patterns. Systematic variations of swimmer aspect ratio, the active fraction of the body length, and channel parameters allow us to identify key geometric and hydrodynamic mechanisms governing swimmer–channel interactions. Our results highlight the strong coupling between swimmer geometry and environmental structure, demonstrating that the body shape and flagellar activity can be tuned to promote transport through particular structures. This framework provides a physically grounded and computationally efficient model for euglenid motility and offers insights relevant to microorganism transport in complex microfluidic and biological environments.
