Glenna Clifton
University of Portland, OR·Ecology & Evolution
Webbed feet have evolved many times in swimming animals, yet ducks alone range from shallow pond dabblers to deep divers. How much of that difference in swimming ability comes from the shape of the foot has not been tested.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Biology
Engineering
- Topics
ducks
webbed feet
swimming
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Measure bone dimensions and toe splay across many duck species, using CT scans of museum specimens, to find evolutionary patterns in foot skeleton shape.
- Quantify the shape of duck foot webbing with photography and 3D scanning, then combine it with bone data in phylogenetic analyses that compare traits across the duck family tree.
- Test how foot shape and paddling motion affect swimming force by robotically moving 2D and 3D duck-foot models in a water flume while recording forces with sensors.
- Visualize the water flow around model duck feet using Particle Image Velocimetry, a laser-based method that tracks particles in water, to explain differences in force production.
More about the research
This project links the anatomy of duck feet to the forces they produce in water. The goal is to explain evolutionary patterns in birds and to inform the design of human-made paddles.
Why it matters
The results could inspire better designs for paddles and similar devices, such as hydroelectric turbines, boat sails, scuba flippers and robotic swimmers. By explaining how foot shape relates to swimming in living birds, the work may also help conservation efforts. It may give paleontologists a framework for judging how extinct dinosaurs and birds swam from their fossil feet.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Samik Bhattacharya
University of Central Florida, FL·Engineering
Measure how rapid pitch-up motions of the wing and tail change lift and drag on 3D-printed bird models near the ground, using a force sensor to capture instantaneous forces during simulated takeoff and landing.
Olivier Coutier-Delgosha
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA·Engineering
Measure how the repeated growth and collapse of cavitation bubbles weakens and ruptures the surfactant film around water droplets in oil, using high-speed visualization of ultrasound-driven emulsions.
Jacob Suissa
University of Tennessee-Knoxville, TN·Ecology & Evolution
Test the Drought-Driven Hypothesis by measuring how vulnerable fern leaves, rhizomes and roots are to drought-induced embolism, the air blockages in water-conducting tubes, and linking this to vascular anatomy at architectural, tissue and cellular scales.
The school
University of Portland: 2 labs on PI Pages.
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