Locomotion is energetically expensive. This may create selection pressures that favor economical locomotor strategies, such as the adoption of low-cost speeds and efficient propulsive movements. For swimming fish, the energy expended to travel a unit distance, or cost of transport (COT), has a U-shaped relationship to speed. The relationship between propulsive kinematics and speed, summarized by the Strouhal number (St=fA/U, where f is tail beat frequency, A is tail tip amplitude in m and U is swimming speed in m s ), allows for maximal propulsive efficiency where 0.2
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