ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2021
Fishes regulate tail-beat kinematics to minimize speed-specific cost of transport.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Predicting axial muscle-fibre strains in larval zebrafish.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Thyroid hormone determines energy efficiency of locomotion in zebrafish (Danio rerio) in a temperature-sensitive manner.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Neural temporal scaling accounts for robust hunting behavior across temperatures.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Metachronal rowing provides robust propulsive performance across four orders of magnitude variation in Reynolds number.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Relationship between caudal fin closing motion and acceleration capability of Rudarius ercodes balistiform locomotion.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Atlantic salmon (Frontiers in physiology · 2025Article
- Identification of the trade-off between speed and efficiency in undulatory swimming using a bio-inspired robot.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Cost of Transport of Undulating Fin Propulsion.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Hydrodynamical Fingerprint of a Neighbour in a Fish Lateral Line.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Energetic expenditure is an important factor in animal locomotion. Here we test the hypothesis that fishes control tail-beat kinematics to optimize energetic expenditure during undulatory swimming. We focus on two energetic indices used in swimming hydrodynamics, cost of transport and Froude efficiency. To rule out one index in favour of another, we use computational-fluid dynamics models to compare experimentally observed fish kinematics with predicted performance landscapes and identify energy-optimized kinematics for a carangiform swimmer, an anguilliform swimmer and larval fishes. By locating the areas in the predicted performance landscapes that are occupied by actual fishes, we found that fishes use combinations of tail-beat frequency and amplitude that minimize cost of transport. This energy-optimizing strategy also explains why fishes increase frequency rather than amplitude to swim faster, and why fishes swim within a narrow range of Strouhal numbers. By quantifying how undulatory-wave kinematics affect thrust, drag, and power, we explain why amplitude and frequency are not equivalent in speed control, and why Froude efficiency is not a reliable energetic indicator. These insights may inspire future research in aquatic organisms and bioinspired robotics using undulatory propulsion.
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