Tracking plankton configurations during vertical migration at different densities*

Diel vertical migration of plankton is a significant synchronized biomass movement ubiquitous to earth’s oceans. The hydrodynamic interactions of swimmers in these swarms may impact the aggregation configuration and the nature of any swarm-scale flow features induced by the migration.

 

Previous work has shown that swimming aggregations can induce aggregation-scale jets significantly larger than individual animals. We use Artemia salina, commonly known as brine shrimp to characterize the dynamic 3D configuration of swimmers during induced vertical migrations. A scanning laser sheet and a high-speed camera allow for 3D tracking of swimmers during vertical migration over 1.2 meters.

 

The reconstructed 3D swimmer configurations for swarms of varying number density enable inference and modeling of the hydrodynamic interactions occurring during synchronized vertical migration.