Hydrodynamics of Aquatic Ecosystems: Current state, challenges, and prospects

The paper endorses a recently emerged interdisciplinary research subject Hydrodynamics of Aquatic Ecosystems, defined as a study of flow-organism interactions in running waters with particular focus on relevant transport processes and mutual physical impacts occurring at multiple scales from the sub-organism scale to the organism patch mosaic scale (comparable to the flow width). This new research area emerges at the interfaces between environmental fluid mechanics, biomechanics, and aquatic ecology, bridging these disciplines together and offering new promising research avenues. After a brief review of the current state, the paper focuses on the challenges that this subject area currently faces, and then outlines research directions to pursue for resolving the highlighted challenges.