A universal hydrodynamic transition in confined marine invertebrate larvae

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Shrestha, Bikram D., Chandragiri, Santhan, Gibson, Christian D., Couture, Nina R., Ruszczyk, Melissa, Prakash, Vivek N.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Shrestha, Bikram D.
Chandragiri, Santhan
Gibson, Christian D.
Couture, Nina R.
Ruszczyk, Melissa
Prakash, Vivek N.
author_facet Shrestha, Bikram D.
Chandragiri, Santhan
Gibson, Christian D.
Couture, Nina R.
Ruszczyk, Melissa
Prakash, Vivek N.
contents The ocean is teeming with a myriad of mm-sized invertebrate planktonic larvae, which thrive in a viscous fluid environment. Many of them rely on ciliary beating to generate fluid flows for locomotion and feeding. Their larval forms, local morphologies, and ciliation patterns exhibit remarkable diversity, producing intricate and dynamic 3D flows that are notoriously difficult to characterize in laboratory settings. Traditional microscopic imaging techniques typically involve gently squeeze-confining the soft larvae between a glass slide and cover slip to study their flows in quasi-2D. However, a comprehensive hydrodynamic framework for the low-to-intermediate Reynolds number (<1) flows in quasi-2D confinement, particularly in light of their complex forms, has remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate that vortices around larvae proliferate with increasing confinement and illuminate the underlying physical mechanism. We experimentally quantify confinement-induced flows in larvae of sea stars and sea urchins. The flows exhibited strikingly universal patterns: under weak confinement, all larvae generated two vortices, whereas under strong confinement, the number of generated vortices significantly increased. The experimental observations were well captured by a low Reynolds number theoretical model based on the superposition of confined Stokeslets. Building on experiments and theory, we developed a comprehensive framework for confinement-induced flows, which suggests that vorticity dynamics are primarily determined by local morphological features, rather than solely the body plan. Our work provides fundamental insights into form-functional relationships between larval morphology and flow generation. Our findings are broadly applicable to understanding flows generated by a wide range of ciliated organisms with complex forms and morphologies, from micro- to milli-length-scales.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_11744
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A universal hydrodynamic transition in confined marine invertebrate larvae
Shrestha, Bikram D.
Chandragiri, Santhan
Gibson, Christian D.
Couture, Nina R.
Ruszczyk, Melissa
Prakash, Vivek N.
Fluid Dynamics
Biological Physics
Quantitative Methods
The ocean is teeming with a myriad of mm-sized invertebrate planktonic larvae, which thrive in a viscous fluid environment. Many of them rely on ciliary beating to generate fluid flows for locomotion and feeding. Their larval forms, local morphologies, and ciliation patterns exhibit remarkable diversity, producing intricate and dynamic 3D flows that are notoriously difficult to characterize in laboratory settings. Traditional microscopic imaging techniques typically involve gently squeeze-confining the soft larvae between a glass slide and cover slip to study their flows in quasi-2D. However, a comprehensive hydrodynamic framework for the low-to-intermediate Reynolds number (<1) flows in quasi-2D confinement, particularly in light of their complex forms, has remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate that vortices around larvae proliferate with increasing confinement and illuminate the underlying physical mechanism. We experimentally quantify confinement-induced flows in larvae of sea stars and sea urchins. The flows exhibited strikingly universal patterns: under weak confinement, all larvae generated two vortices, whereas under strong confinement, the number of generated vortices significantly increased. The experimental observations were well captured by a low Reynolds number theoretical model based on the superposition of confined Stokeslets. Building on experiments and theory, we developed a comprehensive framework for confinement-induced flows, which suggests that vorticity dynamics are primarily determined by local morphological features, rather than solely the body plan. Our work provides fundamental insights into form-functional relationships between larval morphology and flow generation. Our findings are broadly applicable to understanding flows generated by a wide range of ciliated organisms with complex forms and morphologies, from micro- to milli-length-scales.
title A universal hydrodynamic transition in confined marine invertebrate larvae
topic Fluid Dynamics
Biological Physics
Quantitative Methods
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11744