Multifractal random walk in copepod behavior

A 3D copepod trajectory is recorded in the laboratory, using two digital cameras. The copepod undergoes a very structured type of trajectory, with successive moves displaying intermittent amplitudes. We perform a statistical analysis of this 3D trajectory using statistical tools developed in the field of turbulence and anomalous diffusion in natural sciences. We show that the walk belongs to “multifractal random walks”, characterized by a nonlinear moment scaling function for the distance versus time. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental study of multifractal anomalous diffusion in natural sciences. We then propose a new type of stochastic process reproducing these multifractal scaling properties. This can be directly used for stochastic numerical simulations, and is thus of important potential applications in the field of animal movement study, and more generally of anomalous diffusion studies.