scholarly journals Widespread utilization of passive energy recapture in swimming medusae

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad J. Gemmell ◽  
Sean P. Colin ◽  
John H. Costello

AbstractRecently, it has been shown that some medusae are capable of swimming very efficiently, i.e.; with a low cost of transport, and that this is in part due to passive energy recapture (PER) which occurs during bell relaxation. We compared the swimming kinematics among a diverse array of medusae, varying in taxonomy, morphology and propulsive and foraging modes, in order to evaluate the prevalence of PER in medusae. We found that while PER is commonly observed among taxa, the magnitude of the contribution to overall swimming varied greatly. The ability of medusae to utilize PER was not related to morphology and swimming performance but was controlled by their swimming kinematics. Utilizing PER required the medusae to pause after bell expansion and individuals could modulate their PER by changing their pause duration. Passive energy recapture can greatly enhance swimming efficiency but there appear to be trade-offs associated with utilizing PER.

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (18) ◽  
pp. 5088 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shih-Hao Huang ◽  
Chia-Wei Tsao ◽  
Yan-Hung Fang

Zebrafish are a preferred vertebrate model for evaluating metabolism during development, and for toxicity studies. However, commercially available intermittent-flow respirometry systems (IFRS) do not provide a suitable zebrafish-scaled swimming tunnel with a low water volume and proper flow velocities. We developed a miniature IFRS (mIFRS) with a 3D-printed, palm-sized zebrafish treadmill for measuring the swimming ability and metabolic rate of a single one- or three-month-old zebrafish with and without toxicity treatment. The 3D-printed zebrafish treadmill consists of discrete components assembled together which enables the provision of a temporary closed circulating water flow. The results showed that three-month-old zebrafish of normal physiological status had higher energetic efficiency and could swim at a higher critical swimming speed (Ucrit) of 16.79 cm/s with a lower cost of transport (COTopt) of 0.11 μmol g−1m−1. However, for a single three-month-old zebrafish treated with an antibacterial agent, Ucrit decreased to 45% of normal zebrafish and the COTopt increased to 0.24 μmol g−1m−1, due to the impairment of mitochondria. Our mIFRS provides a low-cost, portable, and readily adaptable tool for studying the swimming performance and energetic metabolism of zebrafish.


Author(s):  
Jennifer R Hodge ◽  
Yutong Song ◽  
Molly A Wightman ◽  
Analisa Milkey ◽  
Binh Tran ◽  
...  

Abstract Whether distantly related organisms evolve similar strategies to meet the demands of a shared ecological niche depends on their evolutionary history and the nature of form-function relationships. In fishes, the visual identification and consumption of microscopic zooplankters, selective zooplanktivory, is a distinct type of foraging often associated with a suite of morphological specialisations. Previous work has identified inconsistencies in the trajectory and magnitude of morphological change following transitions to selective zooplanktivory, alluding to the diversity and importance of ancestral effects. Here we investigate whether transitions to selective zooplanktivory have influenced the morphological evolution of marine butterflyfishes (family Chaetodontidae), a group of small-prey specialists well known for several types of high-precision benthivory. Using Bayesian ancestral state estimation, we inferred the recent evolution of zooplanktivory among benthivorous ancestors that hunted small invertebrates and browsed by picking or scraping coral polyps. Traits related to the capture of prey appear to be functionally versatile with little morphological distinction between species with benthivorous and planktivorous foraging modes. In contrast, multiple traits related to prey detection or swimming performance are evolving toward novel, zooplanktivore-specific optima. Despite a relatively short evolutionary history, general morphological indistinctiveness, and evidence of constraint on the evolution of body size, convergent evolution has closed a near significant amount of the morphological distance between zooplanktivorous species. Overall, our findings describe the extent to which the functional demands associated with selective zooplanktivory have led to generalisable morphological features among butterflyfishes and highlight the importance of ancestral effects in shaping patterns of morphological convergence.


1987 ◽  
Vol 65 (11) ◽  
pp. 2690-2695 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Larson

The rhizostome scyphomedusa Stomolophus meleagris swims continuously at speeds up to 15 cm∙s−1. Mean velocities increased as a power function of wet weight up to 70 g but were mostly constant thereafter. Bell pulsations ranged from 1.7 to 3.6 Hz. Reynolds numbers equalled 900 – 13 000. During activity, medusae consumed 0.05 mL O2∙h−1∙g WW−1 (1.2 mL O2∙h−1∙g DW−1), at 30 °C. Rates for inactive medusae were 50% less. The estimated cost of transport ranged from 2 J∙kg−1∙m−1 at 5 g to 1 J∙kg−1∙m−1 at 1 kg. These rates are comparable to those of fishes and about 1/50th that of planktonic crustaceans. These results were unexpected in light of the typical inefficiency (power output/power input) of jet swimming. However, S. meleagris has a very low respiration rate relative to crustaceans and fish, which probably compensated for low swimming efficiency.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 160406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gil Iosilevskii ◽  
Yannis P. Papastamatiou

Sharks have a distinctive shape that remained practically unchanged through hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Nonetheless, there are variations of this shape that vary between and within species. We attempt to explain these variations by examining the partial derivatives of the cost of transport of a generic shark with respect to buoyancy, span and chord of its pectoral fins, length, girth and body temperature. Our analysis predicts an intricate relation between these parameters, suggesting that ectothermic species residing in cooler temperatures must either have longer pectoral fins and/or be more buoyant in order to maintain swimming performance. It also suggests that, in general, the buoyancy must increase with size, and therefore, there must be ontogenetic changes within a species, with individuals getting more buoyant as they grow. Pelagic species seem to have near optimally sized fins (which minimize the cost of transport), but the majority of reef sharks could have reduced the cost of transport by increasing the size of their fins. The fact that they do not implies negative selection, probably owing to decreased manoeuvrability in confined spaces (e.g. foraging on a reef).


1996 ◽  
Vol 199 (3) ◽  
pp. 587-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Farley ◽  
M Emshwiller

Nocturnal geckos can walk on level ground more economically than diurnal lizards. One hypothesis for why nocturnal geckos have a low cost of locomotion is that they can perform mechanical work during locomotion more efficiently than other lizards. To test this hypothesis, we compared the efficiency of the nocturnal gecko Coleonyx variegatus (average body mass 4.2 g) and the diurnal skink Eumeces skiltonianus (average body mass 4.8 g) when they performed vertical work during uphill locomotion. We measured the rate of oxygen consumption when each species walked on the level and up a 50 slope over a range of speeds. For Coleonyx variegatus, the energetic cost of traveling a unit distance (the minimum cost of transport, Cmin) increased from 1.5 to 2.7 ml O2 kg-1 m-1 between level and uphill locomotion. For Eumeces skiltonianus, Cmin increased from 2.5 to 4.7 ml O2 kg-1 m-1 between level and uphill locomotion. By taking the difference between Cmin for level and uphill locomotion, we found that the efficiency of performing vertical work during locomotion was 37 % for Coleonyx variegatus and 19 % for Eumeces skiltonianus. The similarity between the 1.9-fold difference in vertical efficiency and the 1.7-fold difference in the cost of transport on level ground is consistent with the hypothesis that nocturnal geckos have a lower cost of locomotion than other lizards because they can perform mechanical work during locomotion more efficiently.


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Hein ◽  
Katrina J. Keirsted

Understanding the effects of water temperature on the swimming performance of fishes is central in understanding how fish species will respond to global climate change. Metabolic cost of transport (COT)—a measure of the energy required to swim a given distance—is a key performance parameter linked to many aspects of fish life history. We develop a quantitative model to predict the effect of water temperature on COT. The model facilitates comparisons among species that differ in body size by incorporating the body mass-dependence of COT. Data from 22 fish species support the temperature and mass dependencies of COT predicted by our model, and demonstrate that modest differences in water temperature can result in substantial differences in the energetic cost of swimming.


Fluids ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason G. Miles ◽  
Nicholas A. Battista

Jellyfish are majestic, energy-efficient, and one of the oldest species that inhabit the oceans. It is perhaps the second item, their efficiency, that has captivated scientists for decades into investigating their locomotive behavior. Yet, no one has specifically explored the role that their tentacles and oral arms may have on their potential swimming performance. We perform comparative in silico experiments to study how tentacle/oral arm number, length, placement, and density affect forward swimming speeds, cost of transport, and fluid mixing. An open source implementation of the immersed boundary method was used (IB2d) to solve the fully coupled fluid–structure interaction problem of an idealized flexible jellyfish bell with poroelastic tentacles/oral arms in a viscous, incompressible fluid. Overall tentacles/oral arms inhibit forward swimming speeds, by appearing to suppress vortex formation. Nonlinear relationships between length and fluid scale (Reynolds Number) as well as tentacle/oral arm number, density, and placement are observed, illustrating that small changes in morphology could result in significant decreases in swimming speeds, in some cases by upwards of 80–90% between cases with or without tentacles/oral arms.


2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (03) ◽  
pp. 211-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Reyneri ◽  
M. Chiaberge ◽  
L. Lavagno ◽  
B. Pino ◽  
E. Miranda

We propose a semi-automatic HW/SW codesign flow for low-power and low-cost Neuro-Fuzzy embedded systems. Applications range from fast prototyping of embedded systems to high-speed simulation of Simulink models and rapid design of Neuro-Fuzzy devices. The proposed codesign flow works with different technologies and architectures (namely, software, digital and analog). We have used The Mathworks' Simulink© environment for functional specification and for analysis of performance criteria such as timing (latency and throughput), power dissipation, size and cost. The proposed flow can exploit trade-offs between SW and HW as well as between digital and analog implementations, and it can generate, respectively, the C, VHDL and SKILL codes of the selected architectures.


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