Physiological and Behavioural Aspects of Swimming in sturgeon.

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Animals use many locomotor strategies for survival in various habitats. Many factors (e.g., predator-prey interactions) are of profound ecological importance and depend heavily on a fish's ability to swim. Swimming efficiency and performance is related to a species' physiology, morphology and behaviour, and environmental challenges the animal faces (e.g., temperature change, velocity changes). The focus of my research program is to understand the influence of various abiotic and biotic factors on the swimming capacity of sturgeon, a "primitive fish". The rationale for utilizing sturgeon is many-fold, including: (i) biological, because of its intermediate evolutionary position between elasmobranchs (sharks) and teleosts, (ii) their excellent capacity to deal with acute and chronic stressors, and (iii) commercial, owing to their highly prized meat and caviar. Unlike the other species of fish we have studied in the past, our recent findings have shown that sturgeon possess unique morphology and behaviour that affect their swimming patterns. The long-term objective is to address the interplay of behaviour, morphology and physiology on the metabolic costs of swimming in sturgeon. The short term goals here focus on the costs of transport, swimming efficiency, and metabolic fuel use patterns (i.e., whether they use carbohydrates, lipids or proteins) at different speeds in sturgeon. In addition, we will examine the metabolic costs of swimming associated with different substrate types (sand, cobble, etc). The proposed experiments, using swim flume technology, are designed to test novel hypotheses with regard to metabolic costs associated with swimming in a primitive fish. Findings will add significantly to our understanding of evolution of locomotory performance in fish, including physiological adaptations to the environment.