Dear MARMAM colleagues, We are pleased to announce a new publication in which we described a new method for estimating the biomechanical parameters of swimming strokes from tag data. This study reveals that beaked whales may increase efficiency by switching gaits during different phases of deep dives.
Martı́n López, L. M., Miller, P., Aguilar de Soto, N. and Johnson, M. (2015). Gait switches in deepdiving beaked whales: biomechanical strategies for long-duration dives. J. Exp. Biol. 218, 1325-1338. *Abstract* Diving animals modulate their swimming gaits to promote locomotor efficiency and so enable longer, more productive dives. Beaked whales perform extremely long and deep foraging dives that probably exceed aerobic capacities for some species. Here, we use biomechanical data from suction-cup tags attached to three species of beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris, N=10; Ziphius cavirostris, N=9; and Hyperoodon ampullatus, N=2) to characterize their swimming gaits. In addition to continuous stroking and strokeand- glide gaits described for other diving mammals, all whales produced occasional fluke-strokes with distinctly larger dorsoventral acceleration, which we termed ‘type-B’ strokes. These high-power strokes occurred almost exclusively during deep dive ascents as part of a novel mixed gait. To quantify body rotations and specific acceleration generated during strokes we adapted a kinematic method combining data from two sensors in the tag. Body rotations estimated with high-rate magnetometer data were subtracted from accelerometer data to estimate the resulting surge and heave accelerations. Using this method, we show that stroke duration, rotation angle and acceleration were bi-modal for these species, with B-strokes having 76%of the duration, 52%larger body rotation and four times more surge than normal strokes. The additional acceleration of B-strokes did not lead to faster ascents, but rather enabled brief glides, which may improve the overall efficiency of this gait. Their occurrence towards the end of long dives leads us to propose that B-strokes may recruit fast-twitch fibres that comprise ∼80% of swimming muscles in Blainville’s beaked whales, thus prolonging foraging time at depth. The article can be found at: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/9/1325.abstract Please contact for a PDF at: lm...@st-andrews.ac.uk Kind regards, -- Lucía Martina Martín López, PhD student Sea Mammal Research Unit Scottish Oceans Institute University of St Andrews KY16 8LB, Fife Scotland, UK lm...@st-andrews.ac.uk http://soundtags.st-andrews.ac.uk/people/lucia-martin-lopez/
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