申请项目人选用中华哲水蚤(Calanus sinicus)和小拟哲水蚤(Paracalanus parvus)这两种代表性的桡足类优势种浮游动物为研究对象。通过室内可控实验定量研究浮游动物的运动与摄食行为。探索这些特征行为与浮游动物发育形态、雌雄差异及种间差异等生物因子的对应关系。更进一步，定量研究上述行为在成体阶段时受海洋物理过程中关键物理因子的调制，包括代表性水动力学因子以及受水动力因子影响的温、盐梯度和饵料藻类分布等物理因子。应用高速数字全息图像技术和模式分析，在可控的流场环境中实现对生物体行为的定量观测和比较分析。这些结果对解读海洋观测结果，完善和检验浮游动物种群动力模型具有重要的意义。有助于发现和建设适宜饵料浮游动物生长的水动力学环境参数，对精培育系统的设计有指导意义。本研究所建立的海洋流动及物理因子的实验室模拟，以及时空高分辨率的三维观测技术可以推广到其他生物行为的定量测量。

We are going to conduct an experimental study to find how copepods control their movements and positions under various flow conditions. We choose two species of copepods, Calanus sinicus and Paracalanus parvus as target zooplankton. They are widely distributed at Chinese Huanghai and Bohai area and are both important for marine ecosystem. But we are lack of knowledge of their swimming behavior and responses to the change of environment at the scale of hundreds of their body length. This scale is the critical link between tiny zooplanktons and huge scale physical oceanographic phenomenon, such as current and tides. We identify several key parameters that dominant, which are gradient fields of velocity, salty, temperature and food. Such patterned distributions will be calibrated and used as background for zooplankton behavior observation study. The small-scale turbulence which is statistically homogeneous and isotropic is another model of real marine environment that we used. The relationship we find from is the key to understand the meso-scale distribution of zooplankton. We will build up flow facilities to generate such designed flow conditions which permit simultaneous detailed observations of plankton behavior and flow. The flow field will be evaluated by PIV technology (Particle Image Velocimetry). The target zooplankton will be exposed to those flow conditions whose parameters will match those found in East China Sea. The characteristics of swimming behaviour affected by various factors will be identified and analyzed. We are able to acquire three-dimension (3D) trajectories of each zooplankton by digital holographic imaging technology. Copepod kinematics can be quantified via several measures, including transport speed, net-to-gross displacement ratio, number of escape events. The complex morphology of 3D trajectories will be further analyzed and compared by their fractal characteristics. Thus we will quantified the interactions between environment factors and target zooplankton. The contribution of this study addresses on quantified methodology for ocean biology research. The flow facilities and technology, as well as algorithm developed are ready for more applications.