TY - ABST

T1 - Energetics of swimming of schooling fish

AU - Steffensen, John Fleng

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Soc for experimental Biol Annual Meeting - Salzburg 2012John F. Steffensen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)When a fish school swims through the water, every individual consumes acertain amount of oxygen, which means that less will be available for thetrailing fish in the school. In 1967 McFarland and Moss reported that theoxygen saturation decreased approximately 30% from the front to the rearof an approximately 150-m long school of mullets swimming in normoxicwater. They also observed that the decline in oxygen saturation at the rearresulted in the school disintegrating into smaller separate schools.Oxygen consumption of swimming fish increases exponentially or as apower function with respect to swimming speed, and hence the decreasein oxygen saturation through the school is related to the swimming speedof the school. A model describing the oxygen saturation in a fish schoolfrom front to rear at different swimming speeds will be presented. Themodel reveals that the school has a maximum length at the optimalswimming speed, and that a very large school cannot swim at slow speeds.Oxygen saturation through a fish school is also influenced by severalparameters other than swimming speed, i.e. nearest neighbour distance,water temperature, gill oxygen extraction, gill ventilation capacity, etc. Fishswimming in a school have been shown to have energetic advantageswhen trailing behind neighbours, resulting in up to 20% energy saving.The effect of this energy saving is that the fish schools can be longer.A model of oxygen saturation through a fish school will be presented.Email addressforcorrespondence: JFSteffensen@bio.ku .dk

AB - Soc for experimental Biol Annual Meeting - Salzburg 2012John F. Steffensen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)When a fish school swims through the water, every individual consumes acertain amount of oxygen, which means that less will be available for thetrailing fish in the school. In 1967 McFarland and Moss reported that theoxygen saturation decreased approximately 30% from the front to the rearof an approximately 150-m long school of mullets swimming in normoxicwater. They also observed that the decline in oxygen saturation at the rearresulted in the school disintegrating into smaller separate schools.Oxygen consumption of swimming fish increases exponentially or as apower function with respect to swimming speed, and hence the decreasein oxygen saturation through the school is related to the swimming speedof the school. A model describing the oxygen saturation in a fish schoolfrom front to rear at different swimming speeds will be presented. Themodel reveals that the school has a maximum length at the optimalswimming speed, and that a very large school cannot swim at slow speeds.Oxygen saturation through a fish school is also influenced by severalparameters other than swimming speed, i.e. nearest neighbour distance,water temperature, gill oxygen extraction, gill ventilation capacity, etc. Fishswimming in a school have been shown to have energetic advantageswhen trailing behind neighbours, resulting in up to 20% energy saving.The effect of this energy saving is that the fish schools can be longer.A model of oxygen saturation through a fish school will be presented.Email addressforcorrespondence: JFSteffensen@bio.ku .dk

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

ER -