TY - ABST

T1 - Fast-starting for a breath: Air breathing in Hoplosternum littorale

AU - Steffensen, John Fleng

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Soc for experimental Biol Annual Meeting - Salzburg 2012Paolo Domenici (CNR IAMC, Italy), Tommy Norin (Arhus University,Denmark), Peter G. Bushnell (I ndiana University South Bend, Indiana,USA), Jacob Johansen (James Cook University, Australia), PeterSkov (DTU Aqua, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark), John F.Steffensen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Morten Svendsen(Technical University of Denmark, Denmark) and Augusto Abe(Unlversidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil)Fast starts are brief accelerations commonly observed in fish within thecontext of predator-prey interactions. In typical C-start escape responses.fish react to a threatening stimulus by bending their body into a C-shape.Recently, similar C-starts have been recorded in archerfish stimulated bythe fall of a prey item on the water surface, and in tapping motions ofgoldfish, a behaviour that was interpreted to be food-related.Little is known about C-starts being used outside the context ofescaping or feeding. Here, we test the hypothesis that air-breathingfish may use C-starts when gulping air at the surface. Air breathing isa common behaviour in many fish species when exposed to hypoxia,although certain species perform air-breathing in normoxia to fill theirswim bladders for buoyancy control and/or sound transduction.Hoplos/emum littorale is an air-breathing freshwater catfish found inSouth America. Field video observations reveal that their air-breathingbehaviour consists of a fast air-gulping motion at the surface, followed byswimming towards the bottom. Using high-speed video in the laboratory,we compared the kinematics of spontaneous air-gulping performed byH. littorale in normoxia. with those of mechanically-triggered C-startescape responses. Our results show that these two behaviours overlapconsiderably in their kinematics (turning rates and distance covered),suggesting that air breathing in this species is performed using escapelikeC-start motions. This demonstrates that C-starts in fish do not needexternal stimulation and can be spontaneous behaviours used outside thecontext of predator-prey interactions.Email addressforcorrespondence:paolo.domenici@cnr.it

AB - Soc for experimental Biol Annual Meeting - Salzburg 2012Paolo Domenici (CNR IAMC, Italy), Tommy Norin (Arhus University,Denmark), Peter G. Bushnell (I ndiana University South Bend, Indiana,USA), Jacob Johansen (James Cook University, Australia), PeterSkov (DTU Aqua, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark), John F.Steffensen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Morten Svendsen(Technical University of Denmark, Denmark) and Augusto Abe(Unlversidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil)Fast starts are brief accelerations commonly observed in fish within thecontext of predator-prey interactions. In typical C-start escape responses.fish react to a threatening stimulus by bending their body into a C-shape.Recently, similar C-starts have been recorded in archerfish stimulated bythe fall of a prey item on the water surface, and in tapping motions ofgoldfish, a behaviour that was interpreted to be food-related.Little is known about C-starts being used outside the context ofescaping or feeding. Here, we test the hypothesis that air-breathingfish may use C-starts when gulping air at the surface. Air breathing isa common behaviour in many fish species when exposed to hypoxia,although certain species perform air-breathing in normoxia to fill theirswim bladders for buoyancy control and/or sound transduction.Hoplos/emum littorale is an air-breathing freshwater catfish found inSouth America. Field video observations reveal that their air-breathingbehaviour consists of a fast air-gulping motion at the surface, followed byswimming towards the bottom. Using high-speed video in the laboratory,we compared the kinematics of spontaneous air-gulping performed byH. littorale in normoxia. with those of mechanically-triggered C-startescape responses. Our results show that these two behaviours overlapconsiderably in their kinematics (turning rates and distance covered),suggesting that air breathing in this species is performed using escapelikeC-start motions. This demonstrates that C-starts in fish do not needexternal stimulation and can be spontaneous behaviours used outside thecontext of predator-prey interactions.Email addressforcorrespondence:paolo.domenici@cnr.it

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

ER -