Odor landscapes and animal behavior: tracking odor plumes in different physical worlds

The acquisition of information from sensory systems is critical in mediating many ecological interactions. Chemosensory signals are predominantly used as sources of information about habitats and other organisms in aquatic environments. The movement and distribution of chemical signals within an environment is heavily dependent upon the physics that dominate at different size scales. In this paper, we review the physical constraints on the dispersion of chemical signals and show how those constraints are size-dependent phenomenon. In addition, we review some of the morphological and behavioral adaptations that aquatic animals possess which allow them to effectively extract ecological information from chemical signals. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.