Speaker: Jessica Garwood, Assistant Professor, CEOAS, Oregon State University

Topic: Coastal transport pathways: Interactions between ocean physics and behavior

Marine organisms can respond to environmental stimuli, including small-scale fluid motions. Integrated over timescales that range from days to weeks, these responses can influence both the transport of these organisms and their distributions in the ocean. In this seminar, I will discuss the effects of two observed larval behaviors on their cross-shore transport: 1) sinking in turbulence, and 2) depth-keeping in coastal internal waves. Overall, both behaviors increased transport, retention, and settlement probabilities near adult habitats, as well as the average temperature that larvae were exposed to, yielding faster growth. More broadly, these results illustrate how small-scale physical-biological interactions control the environment of plankton and their physiological processes. Throughout the presentation, I will highlight how novel technology and numerical tools can be used to study these interactions, including exciting future research directions.