Studying how fish feel changes in flow to save energy can be used to improve underwater machinery.
A paper published in the journal “Physical Review Letters” provides insight into how fish feel changes in pressure with the lateral line organ, known as the fish “sixth sense.”
James Liao, assistant professor of biology and researcher at UF’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, has been studying how fish sense water flow and manipulate the energy around them to swim more efficiently.
Fish use the lateral line organ, a cluster of nerve cells on the exterior of the fish head and body, to sense the flow of water around them, Liao said.
Liao studies the lateral line organ by using a plastic model replica of a rainbow trout. The plastic model was necessary, because live fish do not behave naturally with pressure sensors on, Liao said.
“It’s hard to measure how fish feel flow, because you have to put pressure sensors on the body,” Liao said. “It becomes too cumbersome, so if you put them on a live fish, they won’t behave normally.”
In order for Liao and the team to determine how fish feel the flow, Liao placed the plastic fish in a flow tank. Once the water flows over the plastic fish the sensors read the pressure at the different points along the body, Liao said.
Understanding this unusual behavior and the way fish move to reduce their energetic cost can be applied to other areas of study, said George Lauder, professor of biology and Liao’s Ph.D. adviser.
This can lead to further advances in the cost of transport, Lauder said. The cost of transport, how much it costs to go a particular distance, is significantly less for fish because of the lateral line organ.
Lauder said it is similar to the process of designing a car to use fewer miles per gallon to go farther. The way the fish are able to decrease their energy exerted by manipulating their environment can be applied to robotics and machinery, Lauder said.
Understanding the lateral line organ can lead to advances in how vehicles maneuver underwater, said Liao’s colleague Sheryl Coombs. Engineers are interested in understanding how animals adapt to their environment, Coombs said.
This study also provides further information about human hair cells. A hair cell is a hair cell, whether on a fish or a human, Liao said.
“That’s something that’s not known in humans, and it’s hard to stick a little recording pipe into the ear of a human to record these things,” Liao said. “So a fish is the next best thing.”
