MODELING OF PLANKTONIC CAPTURE RATES IN TURBULENT ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

An estimation model for planktonic capture rate in turbulent environment has been developed. The planktonic encounter and capture rates are obtained in a numerical experiment where the Reynolds number and the predator's motility and ingestion capabilities are varied systematically. The present model is based on several scaling laws obtained from the experimental results and consists of elementary algebraic equations. Its applicability is examined against another numerical experiment of Baba et al. (J. JSCE B1 69(4) 2013). It is demonstrated that the prediction results are in good agreement with the experimental data.