Overstability Analysis of Thermo-bioconvection Saturating a Porous Medium in a Suspension of Gyrotactic Microorganisms

A linear stability analysis is performed to analyze bioconvection in a dilute suspension of gyrotactic microorganisms in horizontal shallow fluid layer cooling from below and saturated by a porous medium, in the rigid boundary case. It is established that due to cooling from below thermally stratified layer is stabilized, which opposes the development of bioconvection and the situations for oscillatory convection may take place. The stability criterion is obtained in terms of thermal Rayleigh number, bioconvection Rayleigh number, gyrotactic number, bioconvection Peclet number, measure of cell eccentricity, Prandtl number, and Lewis number. It is observed that the presence of porous medium results in decrease of the magnitude of critical bioconvection Rayleigh number in comparison with its non-existence; hence due to porous effect, the system becomes less stable.