Surfing on Turbulence: A Strategy for Planktonic Navigation

In marine plankton, many swimming species can perceive their environment with flow sensors. Can they use this flow information to travel faster in turbulence? To address this question, we consider plankters swimming at constant speed, whose goal is to move upwards. We propose a robust analytical beh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2022-08, Vol.129 (6), p.064502-064502, Article 064502
Main Authors: Monthiller, Rémi, Loisy, Aurore, Koehl, Mimi A. R., Favier, Benjamin, Eloy, Christophe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Life Sciences
Nonlinear Sciences
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Summary:In marine plankton, many swimming species can perceive their environment with flow sensors. Can they use this flow information to travel faster in turbulence? To address this question, we consider plankters swimming at constant speed, whose goal is to move upwards. We propose a robust analytical behavior that allows plankters to choose a swimming direction according to the local flow gradients. We show numerically that such plankters can "surf" on turbulence and reach net vertical speeds up to twice their swimming speed. This new physics-based model suggests that planktonic organisms can exploit turbulence features for navigation.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.064502