Tiny Shrimp Mix Up the Ocean

Crowds of zooplankton swimming upward generate large downward jets of water, a study finds.

Written byCatherine Offord

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Brine shrimp illuminated by an LED array swim upward in a water tank (4x speed) ISABEL HOUGHTON

Tiny shrimp and other zooplankton swimming in the ocean could play a major role in ocean mixing, according to researchers at Stanford University. The team reports that as large numbers of the creatures swim upward towards light during the day, they generate downward jets—a finding that suggests the animals could have substantial effects on the structure and composition of the world’s oceans. The results were published today (April 18) in Nature.

“Whether or not swarming adds up to genuine mixing has been the big question in this business for the past decade or so,” Nicholas Butterfield, a paleobiologist at the University of Cambridge who was not involved with the work, tells Science. “This study makes a pretty good claim for nailing it.”

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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