Surfing on turbulence: a strategy for planktonic navigation

Abstract

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.