Gemmell Brad J, Colin Sean P, Costello John H
Department of Integrative Biology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
Whitman Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
J Exp Biol. 2018 Jan 11;221(Pt 1):jeb168575. doi: 10.1242/jeb.168575.
Recently, it has been shown that some medusae are capable of swimming very efficiently, i.e. with a low cost of transport, and that this is in part due to passive energy recapture (PER) which occurs during bell relaxation. We compared the swimming kinematics among a diverse array of medusae, varying in taxonomy, morphology and propulsive and foraging modes, in order to evaluate the prevalence of PER in medusae. We found that while PER was common among taxa, the magnitude of the contribution to overall swimming varied greatly. The ability of medusae to utilize PER was not related to morphology and swimming performance but was controlled by their swimming kinematics. Utilizing PER required the medusae to pause after bell expansion and individuals could modulate their PER by changing their pause duration. PER can greatly enhance swimming efficiency but there appear to be trade-offs associated with utilizing PER.
最近的研究表明，一些水母能够非常高效地游动，即运输成本较低，部分原因是在钟形身体松弛过程中会发生被动能量回收（PER）。我们比较了一系列不同的水母的游动运动学，这些水母在分类学、形态学以及推进和觅食模式方面存在差异，以便评估PER在水母中的普遍程度。我们发现，虽然PER在各分类群中很常见，但它对整体游动的贡献程度差异很大。水母利用PER的能力与形态和游动性能无关，而是由它们的游动运动学控制。利用PER要求水母在钟形身体扩张后暂停，个体可以通过改变暂停持续时间来调节其PER。PER可以大大提高游动效率，但利用PER似乎也存在权衡。
