Meeting Abstract

83.3  Tuesday, Jan. 6  Ontogeny of feeding kinematics in the seahorse Hippocampus reidi from newly born to adult ROOS, G.*; VAN WASSENBERGH, S.; LEYSEN, H.; HERREL, A.; ADRIAENS, D.; AERTS, P.; Univ. of Antwerp, Belgium; Univ. of Antwerp, Belgium; Univ. of Ghent, Belgium; Univ. of Harvard, Cambridge; Univ. of Ghent, Belgium; Univ. of Antwerp, Belgium Gert.Roos@ua.ac.be

One of the most important aspect of an animals life, adult or juvenile, is the ability to feed. Undoubtedly, the size and shape of an animals feeding apparatus will affect its working method and its constraints. In fish, larval morphology transforms into an adult-like body form during a period of metamorphosis. This causes changes in shape and size that inevitably have drastic functional consequences. To date, only a single study covered the entire range from the first-eating larval stage to reproductive adults when investigating scaling effects on feeding kinematics in zebrafish. The present study investigated the ontogeny of feeding kinematics in seahorses, which show a different feeding strategy (pivot feeding), a period of parental care inside the males brood pouch prior to first-feeding, and a strong allometric growth toward the adult stages. Five age categories were studied (1-3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks and adults). The results show that, even in 1-day old individuals, the feeding apparatus already functions similarly compared to adults. However, the maximal movements during a feeding strike, their timings and velocities are subjected to profound ontogenetic effects.