Laser-Guided Sea-Monkeys Show That Tiny Animals Can Move Mountains of Seawater Small crustaceans like krill could have a big effect on how seawater is mixed in the ocean. The collective movements of tiny sea creatures such as sea monkeys, krill, and jellyfish are dense enough, a new study says, that they may be producing currents in the ocean. Swarms of tiny animals as small as brine shrimp—known to kids the world over as Sea-Monkeys—could have an outsize effect on ocean currents when they swim together in giant herds, according to new research. Plankton, tiny marine creatures often thought of as mere drifters, actually arent always so passive. Many move up and down in the ocean in dense layers throughout the day. These collective movements might produce currents large enough to mix seawater, says study co-author John Dabiri, an engineer studying biological physics at Caltech in Pasadena. (See Sea Animals Change Climate Via Flutters and Flaps?) If so, this mixing may need to be accounted for in simulations of Earths future climate, Dabiri says. Wind-and tide-driven currents move nutrients, heat, and salt around the ocean, and help to regulate the planets temperature, Dabiri says. In recent years, scientists have started to seriously consider whether collective animal movements—like plankton swimming up and down en masse—could also be contributing to currents. Dabiri and a colleague found in 2009 that jellyfish can actually move water over distances greater than their body length just by swimming. The layer of water closest to the jellyfish clings to the animal, with the stickiness of the water diminishing as it gets farther away from the jellyfish. A halo of water around the jellyfish gets dragged along by the animal as it moves. This was the first hint that animals could transport water over distances much longer than their body size, Dabiri says.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 21:05:56 +0000