  This chapter highlights the properties of turbulence and meso-scale flow
structures in protoplanetary disks and their role in the planet formation
process. Here we focus on the formation of planetesimals from a gravitational
collapse of a pebble cloud. Large scale and long lived flow structures -
vortices and zonal flows - are a consequence of weak magneto and hydrodynamic
instabilities in the pressure and entropy stratified quasi-Keplerian shear flow
interacting with the fast rotation of the disk. The vortices and zonal flows on
the other hand are particle traps tapping into the radial pebble flux of the
disk, leading to locally sufficient accumulations to trigger gravitational
collapse, directly converting pebbles to many kilometer sized planetesimals.
This collapse is moderated by the streaming instability, which is a
back-reaction from the particle accumulations onto the gas flow. Without
trapping pebbles and increasing thus the local solid to gas ratio, this
back-reaction would ultimately prevent the formation of planetsimals via
turbulent diffusion. The formation of long lived flow structures is therefore a
necessary condition for an efficient and fast formation of planetesimals.
