Supervisors: Anders Andersen (aanders@fysik.dtu.dk) and Julia Dölger (juldol@fysik.dtu.dk), DTU Physics
Examples of planktonic breast stroke swimmers: (a) Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a flagellate (image by courtesy of Knut Drescher), (b) Mesodinium rubrum, a ciliate, (c) a nauplius (juvenile) of Acartia tonsa, a copepod, and (d) Podon intermedius, a cladoceran.
Plankton are small organisms that inhabit the water masses of the oceans. They are faced with a dilemma: They need to swim to find food and mates, but by swimming they inevitably create flow disturbances that attract predators. Recently, it was shown that planktonic swimmers can reduce the flow disturbances that they create in the water around them, simply by appropriately arranging their propulsion apparatus. In this project you will learn the theoretical model framework behind these results and apply the new fluid dynamical model ideas to explore and describe flows and fluid disturbances due to biologically important swimmers with different propulsion apparatus.