Do Swimming Animals Mix the Ocean?
By John O. Dabiri
What began as a joke has led to new avenues of research in fluid mechanics and marine science.
This Article From Issue
July-August 2024
Volume 112, Number 4
Page 222
The world’s oceans are in constant motion, transporting the Sun’s heat from the equator to the poles, bringing marine life fresh supplies of oxygen and nutrients, and sequestering nearly half of our carbon dioxide emissions since the Industrial Revolution. Within this dynamic aquatic milieu exists another type of motion: the perpetual teeming of trillions of swimming animals. Are these organisms simply along for the ride, carried by the prevailing ocean currents and occasionally using their powers of locomotion to explore their surroundings? Or could their propulsion result in dynamical feedbacks that influence the physical and biogeochemical structure of the ocean itself?
QUICK TAKE
- The perpetual teeming of aquatic swimming animals has long been thought to be a negligible contributor to the physical and biogeochemical structure of the ocean.
- New models have found that marine life have access to far more energy from their environments than expected, so they could affect their surroundings over great distances.
- Direct measurement of ocean mixing from aquatic migration is difficult, but employing magnetic signatures or environmental DNA may help provide the needed evidence.
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