Relationship between plankton size and motility speed

Determine whether a robust, general relationship exists between organism size and motility speed across phytoplankton swimmers and sinkers under consistent physiological and environmental conditions, and establish the conditions under which any such relationship holds.

Background

The authors analyze compiled datasets of swimming and sinking speeds versus size and apply LOWESS smoothing. Due to heterogeneous data sources, varying conditions, and substantial noise, they find no definitive trend.

They explicitly state that, based on their analysis, they cannot confirm or refute the hypothesized size–speed relationship, highlighting the need for coherent, controlled datasets to resolve this question.