Off to the races !

What makes some fish faster than others ?

Is/are there physiological or genetic predictor(s)of locomotor capacity in fishes ?

Are there relationships between locomotor capacity and other potential fitness parameters like growth and reproduction ?

These are the fundamental questions of this part of my research program. But before I could seriously address any of these issues with Atlantic cod, some issues had to be addressed:

One important issue was just to define locomotor capacity. Fish physiologists have traditionally used a measure called "Critical swimming speed", which combines elements of both aerobic and anaerobic swimming performance.

The make the case that if you want to understand the importance of locomotion to a fish's success, you probably need more than one swim test:

Performance of cod

Finally just a description of the sprint performance test I developed with Dale Webber of Dalhousie University; Shannon Reidy swam most of the fish. This test has now been used successfully in two Atlantic cod studies and one sea bass study. A more refined description of the test will soon appear in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology

A laser detection system for measuring fish fast starts

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