Plankton Cells in Turmoil and the Dynamics of Heavy Impurities with Finite Size

摘要

In this lecture we shall focus on the dynamics of individual phytoplankton cells and on simple models to describe their motion in the fluid flow. Phytoplankton cells are small with dimensions up to a few hundred microns. Individual phytoplankton cells immersed in water are advected by the surrounding flow, even though some species can resist passive advection by various means, such as varying their buoyancy and/or swimming. In addition most plankton cells are slightly heavier than water and are thus subject to gravitational sinking (i.e., they are negatively buoyant).