Dissertation Research: The Evolutionary Morphology and Bio- mechanics of Tetraodontiform Fishes

四齿形鱼包括一组不同的功能类型，如河豚、方头鱼、巨型海洋太阳鱼。研究生伊丽莎白·布雷纳德建议在野外和实验室环境中对各种这种鱼进行功能和生物力学性能测试。数据将使用高速视频记录和肌电记录(肌肉激活模式的记录)来收集，并将提供关于它们在防御、运动和食物采集方面各自效率的更清晰的图像。将对不同鱼类物种获得的数据与它们的进化关系进行比较，以评估功能效率在进化过程中是增加了，还是保持不变或降低。拟议的论文研究是一项雄心勃勃的创新研究，将产生鱼类学家广泛感兴趣的数据。这项研究的概念含义是广泛的，其结果将是功能形态学家和一般进化生物学家感兴趣的。

Tetraodontiform fishes comprise a varied group of functional types, such as puffer fishes, boxfishes, giant oceanic sunfish. Graduate student Elizabeth Brainerd proposes functional and biomechanical performance tests on a variety of these fishes in the field and in laboratory settings. Data will be gathered using high-speed video recordings and electromyography (recordings of muscle activation patterns), and will provide a clearer picture of their respective efficiencies in defense, locomotion, and food gathering. The data acquired for different fish species will be compared relative to their evolutionary relationships in order to assess whether functional efficiency has increased during evolution or remained static or decreased. The proposed dissertation research is an ambitious and innovative study that will produce data of wide interest to ichthyologists. The conceptual implications of the study are broad, and the results will be of interest to functional morphologists and evolutionary biologists in general.