Steer'n Roll: A Stereoscopic Flow-Sensing Strategy for Planktonic Prey Detection and Capture

Abstract

Planktonic organisms such as copepods sense swimming prey and sinking food particles through the hydrodynamic disturbances they generate. However, because these flow fields are often highly symmetric, they provide little directional information, making accurate localization of the source challenging. Here, we introduce the steer'n roll sensing and response strategy. This strategy combines stereoscopic flow sensing and a roll motion. Stereoscopic sensing allows plankton to disambiguate flow signals by integrating two spatially separated flow measurements, while a roll about the swimming axis enhances exploration of the three-dimensional space. We show that steer'n roll is efficient, achieving a 100% success rate, versatile across signal type, and robust to flow sensing noise, orientational diffusion, and turbulence. Together, these findings identify a biologically plausible mechanism for prey detection and capture via flow sensing, and offer testable insights into the sensory-motor strategies of planktonic organisms.