ReviewNature communications2023
Scaling the tail beat frequency and swimming speed in underwater undulatory swimming.
Review in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- A model-based approach to study ant energetics from trajectory data.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Fish-diversity-inspired multiple soft millirobot system with morphology-encoded selective control.Science advances · 2026Article
- Neural temporal scaling accounts for robust hunting behavior across temperatures.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Adaptive multimodal swimming gaits in a reconfigurable modular soft robotic fish.Science advances · 2026Article
- Hybrid-Actuated Multimodal Cephalopod-Inspired Underwater Robot.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Forces and symmetry breaking of a living meso-swimmer.Communications physics · 2026Article
- Form and function in biological filaments: a physicist's review.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2025Review
- Effects of boundaries for high Reynolds number artificial swimmers.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Optimizing energetics of lateral undulatory locomotion: unveiling morphological adaptations in different environments.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Galloping Bubbles.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Beyond power limits: the kinetic energy capacity of skeletal muscle.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Review
- Dynamic similarity and the peculiar allometry of maximum running speed.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Robot motor learning shows emergence of frequency-modulated, robust swimming with an invariant Strouhal number.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Universal wing- and fin-beat frequency scaling.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Undulatory swimming is the predominant form of locomotion in aquatic vertebrates. A myriad of animals of different species and sizes oscillate their bodies to propel themselves in aquatic environments with swimming speed scaling as the product of the animal length by the oscillation frequency. Although frequency tuning is the primary means by which a swimmer selects its speed, there is no consensus on the mechanisms involved. In this article, we propose scaling laws for undulatory swimmers that relate oscillation frequency to length by taking into account both the biological characteristics of the muscles and the interaction of the moving swimmer with its environment. Results are supported by an extensive literature review including approximately 1200 individuals of different species, sizes and swimming environments. We highlight a crossover in size around 0.5-1 m. Below this value, the frequency can be tuned between 2-20 Hz due to biological constraints and the interplay between slow and fast muscles. Above this value, the fluid-swimmer interaction must be taken into account and the frequency is inversely proportional to the length of the animal. This approach predicts a maximum swimming speed around 5-10 m.s
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.