NSF-BSF: The Evolution of Hydrodynamics, Mechanics, & Prey Capture in the Feeding of Misfit Fish

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A major pursuit in biology is understanding how the evolution of an animal’s anatomy affects how it performs in the natural world. Fish predators are of particular interest due to their fascinating diversity, including an ability to capture a wide variety of prey. The goal of the proposed work is to understand how evolutionary change in the jaws and skull of fish affect how they operate mechanically and how those mechanical changes affect the ability to capture prey. Using experiments and mathematical modeling, we will focus our investigation on a group known as misfit fish, which includes seahorses and pipefishes. This group includes the fastest predatory strikes known among fish species and these rapid motions are associated with a relatively high pace of evolutionary change. This work will offer key insights into how mechanics and performance shape the evolution of animals. In addition, the proposal will feature initiatives in graduate training. This includes a pair of online workshops in how to visualize the flow generated by animals and a seminar series that features presentations of work by trainees. The work will additionally support the training of undergraduates from under-represented groups through institutional partnerships.This research will be organized around the following aims: (1) identify the evolutionary patterns of mechanical performance, (2) understand the musculoskeletal basis of mechanical performance, and (3) test how mechanical performance affects capture performance. These aims will be addressed through experimentation that will provide the basis of a mathematical model for the mechanics of feeding and an agent-based model for the behavior of predator-prey interactions. These models will serve as the means for analyzing performance landscapes of mechanical and capture performance. The performance landscapes will allow for a consideration of how innovation in the morphology of living and extinct species yields performance benefits, energetic costs, and functional trade-offs. The proposed research provides an exceptional opportunity to understand how evolution acts on species across levels of organization. We will establish a predictive understanding for how morphology generates the motion of a predatory strike and how that motion affects prey capture in a group of related species. This understanding will be achieved through mathematical modeling that is parameterized and verified by experimental results at each level of organization. This approach offers a novel intellectual framework for the study of evolutionary biomechanics that could be applied to a wide variety of biological systems among a diversity of animals.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.