Hydrodynamics of flow sensing in plankton

Abstract

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.