Wake Tracking by Copepods: importance of chemical and fluid mechanical cues

In 1998, the Yen lab discovered that the male copepod Temora can find and follow an odor trail left in the wake of a smoothly swimming female copepod. For the final capture, the male relies on the direction and magnitude of the hydrodynamic signal to accurately aim his lunge to clasp his mate. Recently, work in the Kanso lab at USC developed models for bio inspired sensory systems for both olfaction and mechanoreception. Here we describe the similarities and differences for sensing these two modalities of signal type: chemical and fluid mechanical – to provide a mathematical framework for constructing a bio inspired underwater sensor.