Hydrodynamics of flow sensing in plankton

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Eloy, Christophe
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Eloy, Christophe
author_facet Eloy, Christophe
contents Planktonic organisms, despite their passive drift in the ocean, exhibit complex responses to fluid flow, including escape behaviors and larval settlement detection. But what flow signals can they perceive? This paper addresses this question by considering an organism covered with sensitive cilia and immersed in a background flow. The organism is modeled as a spherical particle in Stokes flow, with cilia assumed to measure the local shear at the particle surface. This study reveals that, while these organisms can always measure certain components of the flow strain, bottom-heaviness is necessary to measure the horizontal component of vorticity. These findings shed light on flow sensing by plankton, contributing to a better understanding of their behavior.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_17316
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Hydrodynamics of flow sensing in plankton
Eloy, Christophe
Fluid Dynamics
Biological Physics
Planktonic organisms, despite their passive drift in the ocean, exhibit complex responses to fluid flow, including escape behaviors and larval settlement detection. But what flow signals can they perceive? This paper addresses this question by considering an organism covered with sensitive cilia and immersed in a background flow. The organism is modeled as a spherical particle in Stokes flow, with cilia assumed to measure the local shear at the particle surface. This study reveals that, while these organisms can always measure certain components of the flow strain, bottom-heaviness is necessary to measure the horizontal component of vorticity. These findings shed light on flow sensing by plankton, contributing to a better understanding of their behavior.
title Hydrodynamics of flow sensing in plankton
topic Fluid Dynamics
Biological Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.17316