Tropical Fish Study in Tahiti
College
Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences
Date of Last Revision
2025-09-05 11:32:52
Major
Biomedical Science
Honors Course
BIOL 495
Number of Credits
4
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
Date of Expected Graduation
Summer 2025
Abstract
During the spring and summer of 2023, I had the honor of partaking in a research study that focused on vertebrae found on the island of Moorea. This journey was made possible through the University-sponsored Tropical Vertebrae Biology course, taught by Richard Londraville and Peter Niewiarowski. Along with fellow University of Akron and Syracuse University students and staff, I traveled to this French Polynesian Island off the coast of Tahiti to study an amphibious fish inhabiting the intertidal zones of coral and rocky reefs, while also exploring the unique scenery and culture that Moorea has to offer.
My research team, composed of my fellow University of Akron students and myself, took an interest in the forces applied by the blackspotted rockskipper to evade predators on the coastline. Our curiosity was specific to their ability the forces exerted as they jump.
In order to better understand the blackspotted rockskippers’ ability to jump off rocks of different properties, we prepared a force plate of various substrates, specifically those of wet, dry, rough, and smooth surfaces. Our analysis demonstrated higher force, jump duration, and power on dry surfaces compared to wet surfaces, with little to no difference when comparing the substrate’s roughness.
Upon returning and finishing our research paper, our article, Navigating Nature’s Terrain: Jumping Performance Robust to Substrate Moisture and Roughness by Blackspotted Rockskippers (Entomacrodus striatus), was successfully published in Wiley’s Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A: Ecological and Integrative Physiology where the rights of the paper are possessed. More about this project can be found here:
Research Sponsor
Richard Londraville
First Reader
Richard Londraville
Second Reader
N/A
Honors Faculty Advisor
Brian Bagatto
Proprietary and/or Confidential Information
No
Recommended Citation
Pettit, Hayley N., "Tropical Fish Study in Tahiti" (2025). Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects. 2060.
https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/honors_research_projects/2060