Morphological adaptations of cavefish support enhanced hydrodynamic perception for underwater environmental monitoring.

ABSTRACT: Many of Earth's most biodiverse and biogeochemically active aquatic ecosystems-including groundwater karst systems, turbid estuaries and the deep ocean-are perpetually dark and hydraulically complex, making long-term, high-resolution monitoring technologically challenging. Conventional optical and acoustic sensors suffer rapid signal attenuation and high energy demand in these conditions. Cavefishes of the genus Sinocyclocheilus, which inhabit lightless subterranean waters, have evolved distinctive cranial morphologies-a duckbilled head, dorsal horn and hump-hypothesized to enhance hydrodynamic perception. Here we show, by combining vital staining of neuromasts with validated computational fluid dynamics simulations across a morphological series of Sinocyclocheilus species, t

SUBMITTER: Yang Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12934297 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature