Abstract
For fishes, swimming performance is an important predictor of habitat use and a critical measure for the design of effective fish passage systems. Few studies have examined burst and prolonged types of swimming performance among several co-occurring species, and swimming performance in many fish communities is undocumented. In this study, we characterize both burst (c-start velocity) and prolonged speed (critical swim speed) across a poorly documented, co-occurring group of stream fishes within the Great Basin of the western USA. We documented the variation in swim speed associated with species, habitat, and body size. Body size had an overwhelming effect on both burst speed and prolonged speed, whereas habitat use and species identity were not significant predictors. Among species, there is no evidence of a trade-off between burst swim speed and prolonged swim speed. Lack of a trade-off in performance between burst swim speed and prolonged swim speed among species may be due to unexpectedly high prolonged swim speeds exhibited by species that used substrate-bracing behaviors. Incorporating body size and variation in behavior, such as substrate-bracing behaviors, into fish passage models will likely be sufficient to ensure the passage of all species without the need to account for species-specific swimming abilities. However, these results characterize the swimming performance for threatened and common fish species such that other comparisons can be made and species-specific studies can access accurate data.
Highlights
IntroductionFlowing water in stream systems imposes constraints and generates selective forces affecting swimming performance [1,2]
Swimming performance is an important measure of fitness in fishes
Different body shapes are adapted for different swimming modes, and optimal body shapes for high burst swimming speed performance vary from optimal shapes for high prolonged swimming speed performance [16,17,18,19]
Summary
Flowing water in stream systems imposes constraints and generates selective forces affecting swimming performance [1,2]. These constraints and subsequent selective forces on swimming performance have been shown to affect fish traits, including swimming mode, body size, shape, physiology, temperature-dependent performance [3,4,5,6,7], prey capture [8], predator evasion tactics [9,10], reproductive success [11], and evolutionary fitness [12,13,14]. Fish swim speed is largely influenced by two phenotypic traits: body size and shape [15]. Prolonged speed (maximal speed that fish can maintain without fatigue for greater than 20 s [3]) is favored in taxa with a narrow caudal peduncle, a large anterior body depth and mass, a caudal fin with high aspect ratio (i.e., large span, low chord) and lunate shape (i.e., crescent-shaped), 4.0/)
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