IOS: RUI: Suction feeding in small organisms - outpacing the size limit

水生食肉植物水生草本植物是已知速度最快的捕食者之一，能够在不到1毫秒的时间内捕获并吞噬猎物。水仙也是最小的吸食者之一，将浮游猎物吸入毫米大小的水下陷阱。水仙不仅因为它们的速度和体积小而有趣，而且因为它们的摄食模式也是从幼鱼到成鱼最常见的。然而，目前的理解表明，吸食不太适合鱼类幼体等小型生物--小型吸食者将水视为粘性物质，这严重限制了吸食速度，并增加了吸食的能量成本。众所周知，幼鱼捕获猎物的成功率低，因此饥饿死亡率高，这反过来又是限制补充和成鱼种群规模的主要因素。本研究旨在确定吸食的下限。这项研究不仅将有助于更好地了解小型生物中的吸食，还可能有助于解决幼鱼的高死亡率问题。为了研究小型生物中的吸食，学生们将对水草进行实验，以发现像幼鱼这样甚至更小的吸食者是如何捕捉猎物的。学生们将建立数学和机器人模型，以探索什么限制了成功。目标是确定允许小型生物吸食的形态特征和流动机制。通过将弗雷斯诺州立大学的学生和合作大学的幼鱼和蝌蚪数据集结合起来，这项研究将比较这三种生物的形态和流动特征，以探索植物和动物在多大程度上形成了趋同的解决方案。这项研究中的研究将在一家为少数群体服务的机构进行。它不仅将被整合到本科生和硕士论文研究项目中，还将被整合到几门本科课程中，以使每年大约2000名学生能够进行真实的研究，作为他们课程工作的一部分。

Bladderwort, an aquatic carnivorous plant, is among the fastest known predators, able to capture and ingest its prey in less than 1 millisecond. Bladderwort is also among the smallest suction feeders, sucking planktonic prey into millimeter-sized underwater traps. Bladderwort are interesting not just for their speed and small size, but because their feeding mode is also the most common found in fish, from larva to adult. Yet current understanding suggests that suction feeding is less suitable for small organisms such as fish larvae - small suction feeders experience water as viscous, which seriously limits suction speed and increases the energetic costs of suction. Fish larvae are known to have a low success rate at capturing prey and hence suffer high mortality from starvation, which in turn is a main factor limiting recruitment and adult fish population size.This study aims to identify the lower size limit of suction feeding. This study will lead not just to a better understanding of suction feeding in small organisms, but might also help to address the high mortality of larval fish. To study suction feeding in small organisms, students will conduct experiments on bladderwort to discover how suction feeders as small or even smaller than larval fish capture their prey. Students will build mathematical and robotic models to explore what limits capture success. The goal is to identify the morphological features and flow mechanisms that allow small organisms to suction feed. By combining data sets on bladderwort from Fresno State, students with data sets on larval fish and tadpoles from collaborating universities, this study will then compare the morphological and flow features of all three organisms to explore how far plants and animals have developed converging solutions. The research within this study will be conducted at a minority-serving institution. It will be integrated not only into undergraduate and Master's thesis research projects, but also into several undergraduate courses to enable roughly 2000 students per year to conduct authentic research as part of their course work.