Abstract DBI 9750321 Eliot Drucker This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biosciences Related to the Environment for 1997. This fellowship provides an opportunity for the Fellow to gain additional scientific training beyond the doctoral degree and to pursue innovative and imaginative into the fundamental mechanisms underlying the interactions between organisms and their environment at the molecular, cellular, organismal, population, community and/or ecosystem level in any area of biology supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences of the National Science Foundation. Each fellowship supports a research and training plan to be carried out in a sponsoring laboratory. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled "Hydromechanics of thrust generation by the pectoral fins of swimming fishes." Particle image velocimetry is being used to visualize flow over the pectoral fins of fishes (surfperches, family Embiotacidae) with distinct swimming kinematics and ecological associations. The structure of the shed vortex wake is being analyzed to refine the traditional "lift-based" and "drag-based" mechanisms by which swimmers in different habitats interact with their physical environment to generate thrust.
