An ultrasonic biotelemetry system for the continuous monitoring of tail‐beat rate from free‐swimming fish

A telemetry system for the continuous monitoring of tail beats, and hence swimming activity, from loch-dwelling brown trout, Salmo trutta L., is described. Tail beats are detected by electromyography and are transmitted using a specially-developed miniature ultrasonic transmitter. The output from the transmitter is relayed to a remote recording station using a radio-transponder buoy. Data analysed to date show that on average fish are active for only 9% of the time. Tail beat rates rarely exceeded 2.5 tail-beats per second (TB/s) corresponding to a velocity of 1 body length per second. The fish showed a ‘preferred’ tail-beat rate of 1.0–2.0 TB/s and consequently they rarely swam at speeds which would incur oxygen debt.

[1]  J. R. Brett The Respiratory Metabolism and Swimming Performance of Young Sockeye Salmon , 1964 .

[2]  R. Bainbridge,et al.  The Speed of Swimming of Fish as Related to Size and to the Frequency and Amplitude of the Tail Beat , 1958 .

[3]  R. Oswald The use of telemetry to study light synchronization with feeding and gill ventilation rates in Salmo trutta , 1978 .

[4]  I. Johnston,et al.  Studies on the swimming musculature of the rainbow trout I. Fibre types , 1975 .

[5]  P. Webb I. THRUST AND POWER OUTPUT AT CRUISING SPEEDS , 1971 .

[6]  Q. Bone On the function of the two types of myotomal muscle fibre in elasmobranch fish , 1966, Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.

[7]  P W Webb,et al.  The swimming energetics of trout. II. Oxygen consumption and swimming efficiency. , 1971, The Journal of experimental biology.

[8]  I. Priede,et al.  The ultrasonic telemetry of cardiac rhythms of wild brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) as an indicator of bio-energetics and behaviour , 1977 .

[9]  D. Ellis Swimming Speeds of Sockeye and Coho Salmon on Spawning Migration , 1966 .

[10]  F. Jones,et al.  Tail beat frequency, amplitude, and swimming speed of a shark tracked by sector scanning sonar , 1973 .

[11]  R. Bainbridge,et al.  Speed and Stamina in Three Fish , 1960 .

[12]  G. Bell,et al.  Anesthetic and Surgical Techniques for Pacific Salmon , 1967 .

[13]  Imants G. Priede,et al.  Heart rate as a measure of metabolic rate in teleost fishes; Salmo gairdneri, Salmo trutta and Gadus morhua , 1977 .

[14]  Richard C. L. Hudson,et al.  On the Function of the White Muscles in Teleosts at Intermediate Swimming Speeds , 1973 .

[15]  P. Tytler,et al.  A small sonic tag for measurement of locomotor behaviour in fish , 1972 .

[16]  P. Mosse,et al.  The functional roles of different muscle fibre types identified in the myotomes of marine teleosts: a behavioural, anatomical and histochemical study , 1977 .

[17]  A. B. Stasko,et al.  Method of Counting Tailbeats of Free-Swimming Fish by Ultrasonic Telemetry Techniques , 1976 .

[18]  A. D. Hawkins,et al.  Tracking cod Gadus morhua L. in a Scottish sea loch , 1974 .