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Functional Morphology and Feeding Mechanics of Billfishes María Laura Habegger University of South Florida, [email protected]

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Functional Morphology and Feeding Mechanics of Billfishes María Laura Habegger University of South Florida, Mhabegge@Mail.Usf.Edu University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 11-10-2014 Functional Morphology and Feeding Mechanics of Billfishes María Laura Habegger University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Integrative Biology Commons, and the Physiology Commons Scholar Commons Citation Habegger, María Laura, "Functional Morphology and Feeding Mechanics of Billfishes" (2014). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5617 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Functional Morphology and Feeding Mechanics of Billfishes by María Laura Habegger A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Integrative Biology with a concentration in Physiology and Morphology College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major-Professor: Philip J. Motta, Ph.D. Stephen Deban, Ph.D. Henry R. Mushinsky, Ph.D. Daniel Huber, Ph.D. Date of Approval: November 10, 2014 Keywords: biomechanics, rostrum, anatomy, performance. Copyright © 2014, María Laura Habegger DEDICATION To my family for their endless support, for teaching me to do my best and never give up. To Martin for his patience, his support and his fuelling love. To Phil and Diane for making us feel we were not alone, for giving us a family away from home. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like first and foremost to thank my advisor Dr. Philip Motta for being an incredible mentor, for opening the door of his lab to me twice. It wasn’t easy being away from home, most of my family and friends but I know without hesitation that I would do it all over again with him as my advisor. I would not have done a fraction of what I accomplished today without his continuous support. Thank you for believing in my work, for your encouragement, advice, for you endless support and time. You are a second father to me. I would like to thank each member of my committee, Dan Huber who has been an incredible support, a source of unbelievable knowledge and an invaluable friend, Steve Deban for always have time for me, for providing so many thorough suggestions, for sharing his knowledge and amazing ideas and Henry Mushinsky for his understanding, his support, for accommodating a five minute meeting without previous notice in his busiest day. I deeply admire you all as scientist but foremost I’m incredible happy I got to know you through these years to learn how amazing people you all are. Thank you to Christine, Mary, Ryan and Karen at the office for solving every single logistical issue an international student may have. Yes!, I spent enough time here to have them all…. However, I never felt alone, they were always there for me. Thank you so much! I could not have done this research without the collaboration of many remarkable scientists that I deeply admire; I still cannot believe I got to work with all of them! Endless thanks to Mason Dean, Betsy Dumont, Marc Lajeunesse, David Johnson, John Dunlop, Gray Mullins and Michael Stokes. Thank you to Summer Decker and Jon Ford for opening their lab to me for making me a little bit better with computers, for teaching me and for their support. I’m deeply grateful to Dr. Harry Fierstine one of the most important researchers in the billfish arena, for his welcoming support and encouragement, for his time and generosity. For sharing years of his work with me, it is such an honor! Special thanks go for Anna Avrigian and Jim Franks, for making my collecting summers so amazing, without you I would not have this project done. Other people have been immensely generous towards my research by providing specimens, thank you to Anne Barse, Bob Hueter, Jack Morris and Mote marine laboratory, Jayne Gardiner, Amber Ferguson, Richard Stanczyk. Thank you to Candy Miranda and Ed Haller for his patience teaching me how to use the SEM. Thanks to Aliza Karim, Christopher Heffner and Vera Melnichuk. Thank you Rafael de la Parra, Doug Perrine and Captain Ed Walker for allowing me to use your beautiful artwork. Many thanks to my good friend Sam, my partner in many fish adventures that occupy a special place in my heart. To Pilar for her encouragement, for believing in me, for showing me that pure friendship can be acquired later in life. To Angela for her support, hugs and sweet words. Thank you to Jose for being there since the beginning, for his encouragement. To my family, your support had fuelled me through the years, thank you for teaching me my work ethics and for guiding me and encouraging me to do my best even if it was the difficult way. Thank you teaching me to be better every day and not give up. Endless thank you to Martin, I could not have made it this far without you, thank you for living this with me, for leaving everything else to be here, for your generosity and support, your patience, your encouragement and understanding. You are the most generous person I know, your love fuels my life and this accomplishment is also yours. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. iv List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................v Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ viii Chapter One: General Introduction ..................................................................................................1 References ............................................................................................................................6 Chapter Two: Feeding in billfishes: inferring the role of the rostrum from a biomechanical standpoint...........................................................................................................9 Abstract ...............................................................................................................................9 Introduction ........................................................................................................................10 Material and methods .........................................................................................................13 Histology ................................................................................................................14 Geometric analysis .................................................................................................14 Bending experiments in a material testing system (MTS) .....................................18 Biological loading scenarios: Point loading and hydrodynamic loading...............20 Results ................................................................................................................................24 Histology ................................................................................................................24 Geometric analysis .................................................................................................24 Bending experiments in a material testing system (MTS) .....................................26 Biological loading scenarios: Point loading and hydrodynamic loading...............28 Discussion ..........................................................................................................................28 References ..........................................................................................................................35 Chapter Three: Feeding biomechanics in billfishes: investigating the role of the rostrum through finite element analysis ................................................................................................56 Abstract ..............................................................................................................................56 Introduction ........................................................................................................................57 Material and methods .........................................................................................................60 Model Validation ...................................................................................................63 Results ................................................................................................................................64 FEA models ...........................................................................................................64 Model validation ....................................................................................................65 Discussion ..........................................................................................................................66 i References ..........................................................................................................................73 Chapter Four: Feeding biomechanics and theoretical calculations of bite force in billfishes ...................................................................................................................................84 Abstract ..............................................................................................................................84
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