NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2020: Suction feeding in the pharyngeal jaw apparatus

这一行动资助了NSF 2020财年生物学博士后研究奖学金，使用生物收藏进行研究。该奖学金支持将以创新方式利用生物收藏的研究员的研究和培训。鱼具有在水下捕捉和吞咽食物的非凡能力，而不需要手、手指或舌头的帮助，但鱼吞咽食物的生物力学机制完全未知。大多数种类的鱼在喉咙后面都有第二组咽下巴，这可能有助于将食物吸回吞咽，并为悬浮在水中的颗粒的运动提供精细的控制。这项研究利用博物馆的藏品和生物学和物理学的方法来发现鱼是如何利用咽下巴控制食物在水中的移动的。这项工作很重要，因为它将阐明鱼的关键功能--吞咽，并可能应用于设计成操纵悬浮在水中的颗粒的机器人。通过这项研究，这位研究员接受了使用博物馆藏品的培训，使用来自物理、工程和生物学的跨学科方法。为了在促进教学、培训和学习的同时提高该研究员的专业知识，该研究员担任一所公立高中海洋生物学科学俱乐部中代表不足群体的个人的关键顾问。这项研究提出了一个新的假设，即口咽内吸流可以随着咽下巴的打开运动而产生，这种流有助于食物向食道的运输和食物的精确定位以供咀嚼和吞咽。在这项研究中，属于不同鱼类群体的博物馆标本被用来量化这些咽下巴的形态，并结合运动形态的X射线重建，对咽下巴的运动和进食过程中口腔内的流体动力学进行测量，将结合起来确定形态变化如何改变流动操纵和猎物的加工。这位研究员利用计算流体力学作为形态和运动学的函数，以便更好地理解硬骨鱼咽部下巴的变化如何影响所产生的流动，从而有可能解锁关于性能矩阵的关键信息，如处理猎物的时间。该研究员将激励高中生在STEM领域寻求选择，以增加对海洋科学的概念性知识，促进技术用于科学研究，并通过培养科学好奇心和推理能力为学生在这些领域的职业生涯做好准备。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2020, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will utilize biological collections in innovative ways. Fish have the remarkable ability to capture and swallow food underwater without the help of hands, fingers or tongues, yet the biomechanical mechanism of swallowing in fish is entirely unknown. Most species of fish have a secondary set of pharyngeal jaws located in the back of their throats that may help suck the food back for swallowing and provide fine control for the movement of particles suspended in water. This research uses museum collections and approaches from biology and physics to discover how fish use pharyngeal jaws to control food movement in water. This work is important because it will illuminate a critical function, swallowing, in fish and may have applications to robots designed to manipulate particles suspended in water. Through this research, the fellow receives training in using museum collections with interdisciplinary methods from physics, engineering, and biology. To advance the fellow’s expertise while promoting teaching, training, and learning, the fellow acts as a key advisor for individuals from underrepresented groups in the Marine Biology Science Club for a public high school. This research proposes the novel hypothesis that an intra-oropharyngeal suction flow can be generated with the opening movement of the pharyngeal jaws and that this flow contributes to food transport toward the esophagus and precise positioning of the food for chewing and swallowing. For this research, museum specimens belonging to a diverse groups of fishes are used to quantify these pharyngeal jaw morphologies, and coupled with X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology measurements of the pharyngeal jaw movements and fluid dynamics within the mouth during feeding, will be united to determine how morphological variation changes the flow manipulation and prey processing. The fellow utilizes computational fluid dynamics as functions of morphology and kinematics to allow for a better understanding of how the variation of pharyngeal jaws across teleost influences the flow produced, potentially unlocking key information about performance matrices such as handling time of prey. The fellow will inspire high school students to pursue options in STEM fields buy increasing conceptual knowledge of the marine sciences, promoting the use of technology for scientific inquiry, and preparing students for careers in these fields by nurturing scientific curiosity and reasoning.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.