Muscle power output limits fast-start performance in fish

Abstract

Fast-starts associated with escape responses were filmed at the median habitat temperatures of six teleost fish: Notothenia coriiceps and Notothenia rossii (Antarctica), Myoxocephalus scorpius (North Sea), Scorpaena notata and Serranus cabrilla (Mediterranean) and Paracirrhites forsteri (Indo-West-Pacific Ocean). Methods are presented for estimating the spine positions for silhouettes of swimming fish. These methods were used to validate techniques for calculating kinematics and muscle dynamics during fast-starts. The starts from all species show common patterns, with waves of body curvature travelling from head to tail and increasing in amplitude. Cross-validation with sonomicrometry studies allowed gearing ratios between the red and white muscle to be calculated. Gearing ratios must decrease towards the tail with a corresponding change in muscle geometry, resulting in similar white muscle fibre strains in all the myotomes during the start. A work-loop technique was used to measure mean muscle power output at similar strain and shortening durations to those found in vivo. The fast Sc. notata myotomal fibres produced a mean muscle-mass-specific power of 142.7 W kg-1 at 20°C. Velocity, acceleration and hydrodynamic power output increased both with the travelling rate of the wave of body curvature and with the habitat temperature. At all temperatures, the predicted mean muscle-mass-specific power outputs, as calculated from swimming sequences, were similar to the muscle power outputs measured from work-loop experiments.