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Oceanography

A fishy mix

Nature volume 460, pages 581–582 (2009)Cite this article

Ocean life is in almost constant motion, and such activity must surely stir things up. Innovative investigations into this concept of 'biogenic mixing' show a role for jellyfish and their brethren.

Well over 100 years ago, scientists speculated that the ocean was driven by the Sun, the Moon, Earth's rotation and the combined motion of all the fishes' tails (M. G. Briscoe, personal communication). Since then, there has been only sporadic interest in the idea that swimming fish and other organisms help to stir the ocean. But, recently, the concept has experienced a resurgence of interest, and the latest example of thinking on the topic appears in the paper by Katija and Dabiri on page 624 of this issue1. They offer a new angle: “a viscosity-enhanced mechanism for biogenic ocean mixing”.

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Figure 1: Shoal of Mastigias jellyfish.

K. KATIJA

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  1. William K. Dewar is in the Department of Oceanography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-4320, USA. dewar@ocean.fsu.edu,

    William K. Dewar

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  1. William K. Dewar
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Dewar, W. A fishy mix. Nature 460, 581–582 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/460581a

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