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  • Open Access

Effect of swimming mode on shielding of odor traces in turbulence

Martin James1,*, Francesco Viola2,3, and Agnese Seminara1,†

  • 1Machine Learning Genoa Center (MaLGa) and Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Genoa, 16145 Genoa, Italy
  • 2Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), L'Aquila 67100, Italy
  • 3INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Assergi, L'Aquila 67100, Italy

  • *Contact author: martin.james@edu.unige.it
  • †Contact author: agnese.seminara@unige.it
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023100 – Published 30 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yxzj-jhk7

Abstract

Marine organisms manipulate their surrounding flow through their swimming dynamics, which affects the transport of their own odor cues. We demonstrate by direct numerical simulations how a group of swimmers, moving at intermediate Reynolds numbers, immersed in a turbulent flow, alter the shape of the odor plume they release in the water. Odor mixing is enhanced by increased velocity fluctuations and a swimmer-induced flow circulation that widens the odor plume at close range while speeding up dilution of the chemical trace. Beyond a short-range increase in the likelihood of being detected, swimming considerably reduces detections with effects that can persist at distances on the order of ten times the size of the group or more. We find that pullerlike swimmers are more effective at olfactory shielding than pusherlike swimmers. We trace this difference back to the dynamics at the swimmer location, which tends to trap odor at the source for pushers and to dilute it for pullers. Olfactory shielding is robust to changes in the conditions, and is more pronounced for weak turbulent Reynolds numbers and large swimmer Reynolds numbers. Our results suggest that olfactory shielding may play a role in the emergence of different swimming modalities by marine organisms.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023100– Published 30 April, 2026
  • Received 7 March 2025
  • Accepted 11 March 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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