Internal efficiency of buoyancy-driven sinking and rising in diatoms

Characterize and quantify the internal energetic efficiency of buoyancy regulation in diatoms by identifying and modeling dissipative mechanisms associated with vacuoles, frustules, and related intracellular processes that enable sinking and rising.

Background

The authors argue that sinking and rising should be treated as active motility mediated by non-visible intracellular machinery, rather than passive particle dynamics.

They explicitly note that the internal efficiency of sinking/rising remains largely unknown, motivating biophysical models that account for intracellular dissipative processes linked to buoyancy regulation.