Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Fish exploiting vortices decrease muscle activity.

James C Liao1, David N Beal, George V Lauder

  • 1Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. jliao@oeb.harvard.edu

Science (New York, N.Y.)
|December 4, 2003
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Skin denticle diversity in the giant manta and the lesser devil ray: A three-dimensional analysis.

Journal of anatomy·2026
Same author

The energetic costs of escaping predation in wild, schooling white mullet (Mugil curema).

The Journal of experimental biology·2026
Same author

Automatic selection of the best neural architecture for time series forecasting.

Nature communications·2026
Same author

Six questions in fish locomotor biology and the technical approaches needed to address them.

The Journal of experimental biology·2026
Same author

Locomotor variation of fishes: connecting energetics and kinematic modulation.

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences·2026
Same author

SpineWave: Harnessing Fish Rigid-Flexible Spinal Kinematics for Enhancing Biomimetic Robotic Locomotion.

Soft robotics·2026

Trout use a novel swimming technique to navigate vortices, activating only front muscles. This reduces energy use, explaining fish schooling and riverine distribution patterns.

Area of Science:

  • Fluid dynamics
  • Biomechanics
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Animals in fluid environments often harness energy from vortices.
  • Limited experimental data exists on fish-vortex interactions and neural control.
  • Understanding these interactions is key to fish distribution patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

  • Investigate the hydrodynamics and neural control of trout interacting with vortices.
  • Determine if fish can exploit vortices for energy-efficient locomotion.
  • Correlate muscle activity with vortex exploitation strategies.

Main Methods:

  • Quantitative flow visualization to analyze water movement around trout.
  • Electromyography (EMG) to measure muscle activation patterns.
  • Experimentally generated vortices to simulate natural flow conditions.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Trout demonstrated a novel slalom swimming mode between vortices.
  • Locomotion involved activation of only anterior axial muscles.
  • Muscle activity was lower during vortex exploitation than during undulatory swimming.

Conclusions:

  • Vortex exploitation offers a potentially less energy-intensive mode of fish locomotion.
  • This behavior provides a mechanism for understanding fish distribution in schools and rivers.
  • Further research into neural control of vortex interaction is warranted.