MECHANICS AND ENERGETICS OF SWIMMING IN THE SMALL COPEPOD ACANTHOCYCLOPS-ROBUSTUS (CYCLOPOIDA)

High-speed films of swimming Acanthocyclops robustus were used to test a crustacean swimming-model based on numerical analysis of thrust production. Predicted body velocities and jump distances were usually within 75% of those observed. Most of the thrust which propels. A. robustus is produced by movements of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th thoracic swimming legs, with only small contributions from the first thoracic swimming legs. A model analyzed without the first antennae suggested that the antennae do not produce significant thrust. The leg and antennal movements could be described with trigonometric equations (cosine curves), but were best described by polynomial fits of position vs time data from the films. Patterns of swimming velocity varied among four episodes that were modeled, and followed differences in swimming-leg motions. Model results for the small (cephalothorax length = 0.6 mm) cyclopoid A. robustus and those which have been reported for the large calanoid copepod Pleuromamma xiphias and other swimmers indicate that mechanical efficiency (30%) does not scale with body size, whereas jump distance (one body length), proportion of thrust generated by hydrodynamic added mass (70%), and net cost of transport, Cp (40 to 109 cal g-1 km-1) do. © 1990 Springer-Verlag.