Fishes regulate tail-beat kinematics to minimize speed-specific cost of transport.

ABSTRACT: Energetic expenditure is an important factor in animal locomotion. Here we test the hypothesis that fishes control tail-beat kinematics to optimize energetic expenditure during undulatory swimming. We focus on two energetic indices used in swimming hydrodynamics, cost of transport and Froude efficiency. To rule out one index in favour of another, we use computational-fluid dynamics models to compare experimentally observed fish kinematics with predicted performance landscapes and identify energy-optimized kinematics for a carangiform swimmer, an anguilliform swimmer and larval fishes. By locating the areas in the predicted performance landscapes that are occupied by actual fishes, we found that fishes use combinations of tail-beat frequency and amplitude that minimize cost of transport. Th

SUBMITTER: Li G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8634626 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature