Résumé
By covering 80% of Earth, the global ocean is the most spread ecosystem in the world. Human activities (pollution, fisheries…) have huge impacts on both oceans and marine life. Despites overfishing and intense maritime transport, many fish species remain in the English Channel. A major challenge in biological research is to comprehend and facilitate the emergence of body shape in fishes for understanding how these organisms may respond and persist in complex and multiple environments with predictable and unpredictable perturbations. Body shape in fish is conditioned by several developmental paths and functions depending on multitude behaviours. Fishes body morphology varies in every species and in some cases had been shown to influence their occurrence, diet and foraging activity in a specific niche. Fish shape has been associated to its swimming capabilities and foraging adaptations. It can limit an individual’s ability to access certain areas and/or be preyed on by other species. Trade-offs in body morphology occur when fish movements and swimming performance are reduced to evade or accelerated or turning manoeuvres to effectuate predation. We propose to study and compare shapes of different fish species to evaluate the relationship between form and function, swimming capacities and locations.