Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

SS01 Submerged Aquatic Vegetation and the Water Column (Environmental Connections)

Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2001, Time: 10:15:00 AM

Location: Galisteo

Gaylord, B, , University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, gaylord@lifesci.ucsb.edu

DYNAMICAL CONSEQUENCES OF FLEXIBILITY IN MARINE ORGANISMS

Benthic marine organisms exhibit a remarkable diversity of form. Traditionally, the freedom for these organisms to show such diversity has been explained at least in part by the suggestion that different design options function as equivalently effective mechanical alternatives. For example, a number of studies have emphasized potential offsetting tradeoffs between organismal designs that combine high stiffness with great strength (e.g., barnacle tests), and designs that utilize extensibility (e.g., seaweeds). Such arguments have relied on the observation that weak but extensible plants and animals can often absorb as much energy as stiff and strong ones before breaking. However, while this concept is physically correct and appealing in its simplicity, it may also ignore important components of the loading regime of many aquatic organisms. Along similar lines, the related and oft-stated argument that greater compliance always ameliorates the consequences of transient forces may be accurate only in some cases. These two issues are explored quantitatively through the use of general models that demonstrate the importance of accounting explicitly for the details of fluid-organism interactions, in particular the dynamics of motion of plants or animals subjected to time-varying forces.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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