User:Sgartner456/Aquatic feeding mechanisms

Tradeoffs
The morphologies and behaviors during suction feeding have led to three main proposed tradeoffs that determine the success of prey capture : 1) The rate of jaw opening and closing, 2) The mobility of the bony elements in the skull, 3) The ratio of ram to suction feeding behavior. The first two qualifications center around the situation that results from a highly kinetic skull . Having a highly mobile skull introduces a tradeoff between the ability to have high speed jaw opening (high kinesis) or higher bite transmission (lower kinesis). While there is a more complex relationship between mechanical advantage and the speed of lower jaw depression, there is consensus that species using high-speed attacks have more cranial kinesis compared to species that exhibit low speed attacks . Species that have a durophagous diet have also evolved skull morphologies to crush the hard-shelled prey that is a part of their diet. Durophagous species skulls consistently have more fused skulls and shorter jaw lengths. This morphology leads to the skulls being less kinetic than their piscivorous counterparts. Having shorter jaw lengths, with a more akinetic skull allows for an individual to have a higher bite force, compromising the ability to have a faster jaw opening when the jaw lengths are longer.

The third main tradeoff within suction feeding occurs with the incorporation of ram feeding with suction feeding behaviors. Ram feeding involves movement of the predator with its mouth open to engulf the prey. Most species use ram feeding combined with suction feeding to increase the chances of capturing elusive prey by swimming towards their prey while using suction to draw prey into the mouth. This diversity in relative use is quantified using the Ram Suction Index (RSI) that calculates the ratio of use for ram and suction during prey capture. The RSI ratio can be influenced by the morphology of the predator and by the elusiveness of the prey. Ram feeding and suction feeding are on opposite sides of the feeding spectrum, where extreme ram feeding is when a predator swims over an immobile prey item with open jaws to engulf the prey. Extreme suction feeding is demonstrated by sit-and-wait predators that rely on rapid depression of the jaws to capture prey (e.g. frogfish, Antennariidae). There is wide diversity on how much of each feeding strategy an individual uses, especially when body ram movements are considered. The relative use of ram and suction feeding is species dependent, but it can help determine the accuracy of prey capture.

The mouth aperture represents another tradeoff between the ability to capture large elusive prey with more chances of failure—large gape—or to capture smaller elusive prey with greater success—smaller gape. A predator with a small mouth aperture can generate strong suction force compared to an individual with a wider gape. This was demonstrated by Wainwright et al. (2007) by comparing the feeding success of the bluegill sunfish, Lepomis macrochirus, and the largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides. L. macrochirus has a smaller gape and was found to have higher accuracy with higher flow velocity and acceleration while M. salmoides has a larger gape with lower accuracy and lower flow velocity and acceleration. However, with the larger gape the largemouth bass were able to capture larger elusive prey. Using ram feeding in combination with suction feeding can also influence the direction of water into the mouth of the predator. With use of ram, predators are able to change the flow of water around the mouth and focus the flow of water into the mouth. But with too much ram, a bow wave is created in front of the predator which can push the prey away from the predator’s body. The mouth aperture and RSI represent the overall tradeoff between having a large gape with lower accuracy but being able to capture larger prey vs. having a smaller gape with increased accuracy but the size of prey is limited. The three main tradeoffs within the fish skull have occurred because of the high kinesis in the skull and the elusiveness of some prey types. However, having kinesis in the skull can enable a predator to evolve new techniques on increasing the performance of prey capture.