ICB manuscript accepted!

Look for my manuscript in Integrative and Comparative Biology soon (Update 5/15/15: it's out now here http://bit.ly/1L6KIzE)!  This is a compliment to what I presented at SICB in West Palm Beach at the symposium "New Insights into Suction Feeding Biomechanics and Evolution" organized by my PhD advisor, Tim Higham, and his PhD advisor, Peter Wainwright.

What are our predictions of how an "integration space"
explains fish diversity?  Read the paper to find out!

In summary, we were interested in increasing awareness and providing methods and a context for thinking about complex behaviors and how multiple functional systems can be coordinated and integrated when they work together to accomplish a common task.  We use prey capture in fishes as the common task involving both locomotor and feeding functional systems as an example of this idea because of the extensive background on each system in this group.  We aim to do 4 things in this paper: 1) discuss complexity and integration and what they mean to biomechanics, 2) discuss the importance of integration for understanding patterns of diversity (here we hypothesize the integration space above), 3) provide empirical demonstrations of integration using a meta-analysis of ram and gape from several species found in the literature as well as a multivariate re-analysis of previously published sculpin data, and 4) discuss how this approach adds novel insights into organism function and diversity as well as outline future questions related to these ideas. We hope this work can be used to drive the future of study on complex functional behaviors, and that future work on fish feeding acknowledges the potentially significant role that other systems, such as locomotion, can play in diversification patterns.

For fun, here are some videos of black crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus) capturing two prey types.  Notice the very interesting locomotor strategy of crappie when capturing evasive fish prey - a roll behavior, coupled with a slow stalk and quick burst of acceleration.

This is not observed when capturing other types of prey such as frozen bloodworms.

Interesting examples of the importance of locomotion during prey capture!

Biomechanics: Using physics to understand animals

I am developing an outreach activity that will bridge the gap between math and biology that I can perform for elementary and high school students, either when they come to visit the CSU guppy lab or for external events.  After discussing Sir Isaac Newton and his laws of motion, I talk about how we can use motion, specifically speed/velocity and acceleration, to understand differences between animals.  I then show them drawings of a largemouth bass and a bluegill sunfish and help them predict differences in swimming performance based on body shape.  To test those predictions, we analyze two high speed videos of these fish capturing prey.  Then we discuss our results and talk about how differences in swimming might contribute to differences in ecology and survival in different habitats (i.e. evolution).  I relate this to the current work here at CSU by talking about how guppies fit into this idea.  I have done this so far with high school juniors/seniors and 8th graders.  Special thanks to Dale Broder for inspiring me to create this activity using authentic science!

Discussing Newton's laws of motion

Forces acting on a fish (for some reason the camera made the image a rainbow)

Morphological differences between species

Students calculating velocity from still frames

Students calculating velocity

Thanks to Dale Broder and Katie Guilbert for photos!

Guppy videos

Here are some high-speed videos I have taken recently of guppies feeding on two prey types: relatively easy to catch brine shrimp nauplii, and very difficult to catch freshwater copepods.  The copepod trial just happened today, and I am excited that I have found an evasive prey to challenge these guppies.  Since I want to look at differences between populations, I need a prey that's going to make them work.  Otherwise, those differences might be hard to find.

Without further ado...
A guppy capturing brine shrimp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vimkkrNHSro&list=UULvFDv9IahzX1Qum8N3mD-Q

and a guppy capturing (or rather not capturing!) a copepod:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9YvZJc0jhs&list=UULvFDv9IahzX1Qum8N3mD-Q

**All procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at Colorado State University**

Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015!

Since January 2014, I have completed my dissertation, graduated, moved to Colorado, started a postdoc position, and participated in a symposium at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.  These are no small tasks, and I wouldn't have been able to do it without the support of my family, friends, and advisors.  Participating in the symposium was actually a really nice way to conclude my life as a student and stand on my own two feet as an independent researcher.  The talk went extremely well and I could tell it got at least a few people thinking.  Thanks to everyone for their supportive comments!  I will be sure to post as soon as the ICB paper is available online.

SICB 2015: Sandy Kawano (NIMBioS, Knoxville, TN), Me, Kathleen Foster
(UCR, Riverside, CA), and Jeff Olberding (USF, Tampa, FL)

Looking forward to 2015, I have lots of plans, though they don't seem as defining and conclusive as those of 2014.  Some of my major tasks for this year include:

1.  Developing my outreach program in Fort Collins, CO
2.  Collecting feeding video for up to 20 individual guppies from 4 populations to describe feeding kinematics and differences with integration along environmental gradients
3.  Automating as much of my video analysis as possible (yes, I will share if it works!)
4.  Publishing guppy results
5.  Polishing up the data from the last chapter of my dissertation (bluegill) and finish analyzing two additional species not included in my dissertation (bass and green sunfish)
6.  Publishing final dissertation results
7.  Presenting final dissertation results at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting in Prague, Czech Republic this summer
8.  Another trip to Trinidad to collect guppies and start on breeding design for common garden experiment to test for genetic and environmental effects on performance integration
9.  Guest lecture/help develop content for Kim Hoke's "biological basis of behavior" class this spring

By making this list, I am hoping it will keep me accountable!  At any rate, completing just a handful of these tasks is a big accomplishment!

SICB 2015 approaching fast!

I've been busily working on my symposia talk for SICB 2015 in West Palm Beach, FL.  I'm excited to talk about performance integration in the context of suction feeding in fishes!  I will present some ideas I have been working on in my dissertation, like a multivariate method for quantifying performance integration, as well as some new ideas about how integration can contribute to patterns of diversity in fish feeding.  If that isn't enticing enough, there are also 7 high speed videos of animals catching (or attempting to catch) prey!

Come see my talk!

Wednesday Jan. 7, 1:30pm