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First published online January 8, 2007
Journal of Experimental Biology 210, 299-310 (2007)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2007
doi: 10.1242/jeb.02633

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Quantitative analysis of tethered and free-swimming copepodid flow fields

Kimberly B. Catton¹, Donald R. Webster^1,*, Jason Brown² and Jeannette Yen²

¹ School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0355, USA
² School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0230, USA

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: dwebster{at}ce.gatech.edu)

Accepted 7 November 2006

We quantified the flow field generated by tethered and free-swimming Euchaeta antarctica using the particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique. The streamlines around the free-swimming specimens were generally parallel to the body axis, whereas the streamlines around all of the tethered copepodids demonstrated increased curvature. Differences noted in the streamline pattern, and hence the vorticity, dissipation rate and strain rate fields, are explained by considering the forces on the free-swimming specimen compared to the tethered specimen. Viscous flow theory demonstrates that the force on the fluid due to the presence of the tether irrevocably modifies the flow field in a manner that is consistent with the measurements. Hence, analysis of the flow field and all associated calculations differ for tethered versus free-swimming conditions. Consideration of the flow field of the free-swimming predatory copepodid shows the intensity of the biologically generated flow and the extent of the mechanoreceptive signal quantified in terms of shear strain rate. The area in the dorso-ventral view surrounded by the 0.5 s^-1 contour of e_xy, which is a likely threshold to induce an escape response, is 11 times the area of the exoskeletal form for the free-swimming case. Thus, mechanoreceptive predators will perceive a more spatially extended signal than the body size.

Key words: copepod, Euchaeta antarctica, hydrodynamics, tethering, sensory systems

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