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First published online December 26, 2008
Journal of Experimental Biology 212, 277-286 (2009)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2009
doi: 10.1242/jeb.021360
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Caudal fin shape modulation and control during acceleration, braking and backing maneuvers in bluegill sunfish, Lepomis macrochirus

B. E. Flammang* and G. V. Lauder

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA


Figure 1
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  		Fig. 1. Cladogram representing phylogenetic relationships between major groups of actinopterygian (ray-finned) fishes. Diagrams of gar (Lepisosteus) and bowfin (Amia) skeletons are modified from Lauder (Lauder, 1989Go), with color outlines of intrinsic caudal muscles added. The color coding of the muscles is the same used for the bluegill sunfish (Lepomis) in Flammang and Lauder (Flammang and Lauder, 2008Go) and in Figs 5, 6, 7 here. The intrinsic caudal muscles represented are the flexor dorsalis (FD, green), flexor ventralis (FV, blue), hypochordal longitudinalis (HL, purple), infracarinalis (IC, gray), interradialis (IR, red) and supracarinalis (SC, yellow). Note that Lepisosteus lacks all intrinsic caudal musculature except for a broad FV, and Amia lacks the FD, IC and all ventral IR muscles.

 

Figure 2
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  		Fig. 2. Representative examples of caudal fin shape modulation in a bluegill sunfish, Lepomis macrochirus. Images are frames from posterior-view high-speed video captured during data collection of steady swimming at 1.2 L s–1 (A), braking (B), and kick (C) and glide (D) maneuvers. Tail outlines closely follow the distal margin of the caudal fin and fin ray position. Arrows indicate the major direction of movement of the dorsal and ventral lobes of the caudal fin. Bar (yellow), 2 cm.

 

Figure 3
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  		Fig. 3. Plots of mean lateral excursion of the dorsal tip of the tail fin (A) and mean tail height (B) during normal swimming at 1.2 L s–1 (black circles) (Flammang and Lauder, 2008Go), kick-and-glide accelerations (red triangles), braking (white diamonds) and backing maneuvers (green squares). All kinematic variables are plotted as the means ± s.e.m.

 

Figure 4
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  		Fig. 4. Plots of mean lateral excursion ± s.e.m. of the dorsal tip (circles), fork (triangles) and ventral tip (squares) of the tail fin during kick-and-glide (A, red), braking (B, white) and backing (C, green) maneuvers. A solid line connects the values for fork of the tail throughout the tail beat to compare against dorsal and ventral tail tip excursion. The dashed zero line indicates the mean direction of travel.

 

Figure 5
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  		Fig. 5. Kick-and-glide maneuver. Muscle activity is shown for the left supracarinalis (SC), hypochordal longitudinalis (HL), flexor dorsalis (FD), interradialis (IR) designated by its number (6, 9, 12) of dorsally corresponding fin ray, flexor ventralis (FV) and infracarinalis (IC) and right red axial myomere of the caudal peduncle (RED). The colors of electromyographic (EMG) traces are the same as Figs 1, 6 and 7 and as in the Flammang and Lauder study of steady swimming (Flammang and Lauder, 2008Go). Yellow tail outlines in the images above closely follow the distal margin of the caudal fin and fin ray position. Yellow arrows indicate the major direction of tail lobe movement. Images correspond to a normal tail beat at 2.0 L s–1 (A), a fast kick (B), beginning of the glide (C) and the end of the glide before a normal tail beat (D). Bar (yellow), 2 cm.

 

Figure 6
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  		Fig. 6. Acceleration and braking maneuver. Muscle activity is shown for the left supracarinalis (SC), hypochordal longitudinalis (HL), flexor dorsalis (FD), interradialis (IR) designated by its number (6, 9, 12) of dorsally corresponding fin ray, flexor ventralis (FV) and infracarinalis (IC) and right red axial myomere of the caudal peduncle (RED). Yellow tail outlines in the images above closely follow the distal margin of the caudal fin and fin ray position. Yellow arrows indicate the major direction of tail lobe movement. Images are of acceleration towards the prey item (A), flaring and cessation of lateral motion of the caudal fin (B), contralateral movement of the ventral lobe (C), dorsal and ventral lobes moving in the opposite direction (D), `S'-shaped caudal fin when forward movement of fish stops (E) and preparation to begin swimming again (F). Bar (yellow), 2 cm.

 

Figure 7
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  		Fig. 7. Backing maneuver. Muscle activity is shown for the left supracarinalis (SC), hypochordal longitudinalis (HL), flexor dorsalis (FD), interradialis (IR) designated by its number (6, 9, 12) of dorsally corresponding fin ray, flexor ventralis (FV) and infracarinalis (IC) and right red axial myomere of the caudal peduncle (RED). Arrows indicate the dorsal progression of the wave along the distal edge of the caudal fin. Tail outlines closely follow the distal margin of the caudal fin and fin ray position. Bar (yellow), 2 cm.

 

Figure 8
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  		Fig. 8. Histograms of muscle activity duration, onset of muscle activity relative to the red axial myomere and electromyographic (EMG) burst intensity for seven intrinsic tail muscles during kick-and-glide accelerations (red), braking (white), backing maneuver (green) and normal swimming at 1.2 L s–1 (black) (Flammang and Lauder, 2008Go). The left-hand y-axis is scaled for both muscle activity duration and the relative onset of muscle activity (in seconds), and the right-hand y-axis represents the EMG burst intensity (in mV s). Error bars indicate s.e.m. The red axial onset of activity was the reference for other muscle relative onsets.

 

Figure 9
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  		Fig. 9. Principal component analysis of muscle activity duration, relative onset of muscle activity and electromyographic (EMG) burst intensity of all intrinsic caudal muscles except the red axial myomeres during kick-and-glide (red triangles), braking (white diamonds) and backing maneuvers (green squares), and normal swimming at 1.2 L s–1 (black circles) (Flammang and Lauder, 2008Go). Each point represents one sequence in which all caudal muscle activity is measured for a given swimming behavior. Further explanation of principal component loadings (Table 1) are given in the text.

 

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© The Company of Biologists Ltd 2009