Numerical simulations of flow around copepods: Challenges and future directions

Abstract

Copepods are small aquatic creatures which are abundant in oceans as a major food source for fish, thereby playing a vital role in marine ecology. Because of their role in the food chain, copepods have been subject to intense research through different perspectives from anatomy, form-function biology, to ecology. Numerical simulations can uniquely support such investigations by quantifying: (i) the force and flow generated by different parts of the body, thereby clarify the form-function relation of each part; (ii) the relation between the small-scale flow around animal and the large-scale (e.g., oceanic) flow of its surroundings; and (iii) the flow and its energetics, thereby answering ecological questions, particularly, the three major survival tasks, i.e., feeding, predator avoidance, and mate-finding. Nevertheless, such numerical simulations need to overcome challenges involving complex anatomic shape of copepods, multiple moving appendages, resolving different scales (appendage-, animal- to large-scale). The numerical methods capable of handling such problems and some recent simulations are reviewed. At the end, future developments necessary to simulate copepods from animal- to surrounding-scale are discussed.