Goals and approaches in the analysis of locomotion in fish, with a focus on laboratory studies

Abstract

There are many reasons to investigate fish locomotion. Topics include activity rhythms, energetics, orientation in time and space, responses to a variety of stimuli, including those originating from food, conspecifics or predators, and ontogenetic changes. Habitat selection and orientation along physical gradients are of considerable interest in ecology. Besides movements of individual fish, group behavior (schooling/shoaling) is relevant in a variety of biological and fishery contexts.According to this diversity of goals, the approaches and the complexity of analysis vary. In the simplest case, activity provides a unidimensional measurement of how much an individual moves. More complex, swim path analysis aims at describing the shapes of the trails by considering parameters such as speed, steadiness of swimming, length of the straight trajectories vs. turns (directions and angles), use of area, distance to conspecifics, etc. By including the vertical axis, a two-dimensional (2D) path may be extended to a threedimensional path GD). A variety of methodological approaches have been used to record fish movements, including visual monitoring, arrays of photocells, time-lapse photography, movie-filming, video-taping, and ultrasonic systems. Due to its superior analytical potentials and ease of application, computer-aided video-systems presently prevail in laboratory applications, whereas ultrasonic telemetry and sonar systems dominate field research.An example is presented of a computerized, video-based, 2D-path analysis of minnows (Phoxinus phoxinus) that were chemically stimulated. Nine parameters were considered and the benefits of multivariate as compared to univariate statistics are shown. With a sufficient number of parameters, the former is superior in distinction and allows judgments on behavior of individuals.

Behavior of western blacknose dace in a turbulence modified flow field

“…Flow is right to left for all images and grids are 5 cm on edge. Rodriguez et al, 2011), even though many variables are known to influence fish locomotion (Kotrschal and Essler, 1995;Castro-Santos et al, 2009). The present study demonstrated turbulence does influence fish trajectories, but it can explain only a portion of the fish behavior observed.…”

“…Conspecifics can introduce hydraulic advantages when traversing a flow field (Liao, 2007) and possibly provide swimming motivation (Enders et al, 2009). Swimming in small groups may afford the dace an ability to better handle elevated turbulence conditions and reduce the need to seek out lower magnitudes, while there may be potential advantages for fish locomotion in pathways accommodating multiple fish simultaneously (Kotrschal and Essler, 1995). Thus, swim path designs should be adequately sized for shoaling or schooling species and provide for visual connection between conspecifics.…”

“…At the same time, several non-hydraulic parameters also can affect fish passage including light intensity (Gray, 1937;Fraser and Emmons, 1984;Bouska and Paukert, 2010), water temperature (Rodriguez et al, 2006), the physical condition of the fish (Fraser and Emmons, 1984;Nelson et al, 2003), fish acclimation history (Nestler et al, 2008), and motivation for fish to move upstream (Castro-Santos, 2004). Lastly, fish-specific parameters also can affect fish passage and fish behavior, including the presence of conspecifics (from either a motivational and/or a hydraulic perspective; (Kotrschal andEssler, 1995, Castro-Santos et al, 2009;Hall et al, 2011), individual fish characteristics such as mass and length (Nelson et al, 2003, Liao, 2007Castro-Santos et al, 2009), and the abilities of sensory features such as the inner ear, eye and lateral line (often used in navigation to detect environmental signals (Coombs, 1999;Montgomery et al, 2000;Coombs and Grossman, 2006;Liao, 2006).…”

Quantitative movement analysis of social behavior in mummichog, Fundulus heteroclitus

“…Due to their high biological significance in nature, schooling and shoaling have been a research focus for nearly a century. However, schooling and shoaling behaviors have been historically difficult to quantify due to the complexity of the different movement patterns including swimming, search, and sensory behaviors (Koltrschal and Essler 1995). Tracking multiple fish over extended periods of time is computationally expensive, and many studies have resorted to investigating a small number of video frames and manually plotting fish coordinates for calculation of parameters (Partridge 1980;Koltes 1985;Fuiman and Webb 1988;Rehnberg and Smith 1988;Bumann and Krause 1993;Gallego and Heath 1994;Masuda and Tsukamoto 1998).…”

Qualification of spontaneous undirected locomotor behavior of fish for sublethal toxicity testing. Part II. Variability of measurement parameters under toxicant‐induced stress

“…When computer‐based technology offered practicable approaches to use automated monitoring, the behavioral approach started to gain importance in applied aquatic ecotoxicology. Among behavioral responses appropriate for monitoring sublethal effects of chemicals, undirected spontaneous locomotor behavior is generally considered a “powerful tool” [1–13].…”