BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20260621T110000
DTEND:20260621T120000
SUMMARY:Movement patterns of jellyfish – from individuals to swarm
DESCRIPTION:<p>The predictability of outbreaks and dispersion of jellyfish is limited by a fundamental gap in our understanding of their movement. Although there is evidence that jellyfish may actively affect their position, the role of active swimming in controlling jellyfish movement, and the characteristics of jellyfish swimming behavior, are not well understood. Here I will show results from a research aimed at addressing the gap, using remote sensing observations from satellite airplanes and drones. Taking a Lagrangian viewpoint from drone videos that allows the tracking of multiple adjacent jellyfish, and focusing on the scyphozoan jellyfish Rhopilema nomadica as a model organism, we found that the movement of jellyfish is modulated by distinctly directional swimming patterns that are oriented away from the coast and against the direction of surface gravity waves. The behavior of individual jellyfish translates into a synchronized directional swimming of the aggregation as a whole. Numerical simulations show that this counter-wave swimming behavior results in biased correlated random-walk movement patterns that reduce the risk of stranding, thus providing jellyfish with an adaptive advantage critical to their survival. Our results emphasize the importance of active swimming in regulating jellyfish movement and open the way for a more accurate representation in model studies, thus improving the predictability of jellyfish outbreaks and their dispersion and contributing to our ability to mitigate their possible impact on coastal infrastructure and populations.</p>
LOCATION:
TRANSP:OPAQUE
URL:https://www.weizmann.ac.il/EPS/events
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR