A physics-based model of swarming jellyfish

TL;DR

This paper introduces a physics-based model for jellyfish swarming behavior, capturing phenomena like counter-current swimming and turbulence avoidance, validated across different flow environments.

Contribution

It presents a novel active Brownian particle model specifically tailored for jellyfish swarming, integrating observed behaviors into a generic framework.

Findings

Model successfully reproduces jellyfish counter-current swimming.

Effective in simulating turbulence avoidance behaviors.

Applicable across various flow conditions.

Abstract

We propose a model for the structure formation of jellyfish swimming based on active Brownian particles. We address the phenomena of counter-current swimming, avoidance of turbulent flow regions and foraging. We motivate corresponding mechanisms from observations of jellyfish swarming reported in the literature and incorporate them into the generic modelling framework. The model characteristics is tested in three paradigmatic flow environments.