Collective gradient sensing in fish schools

Throughout the animal kingdom, animals frequently benefit from living in groups. Models of collective behaviour show that simple local interactions are sufficient to generate group morphologies found in nature (swarms, flocks and mills). However, individuals also interact with the complex noisy envi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScientific reports Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 7587 - 11
Main Authors Puckett, James G., Pokhrel, Aawaz R., Giannini, Julia A.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 15.05.2018
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
631/114
639/766/747
Animals
Behavior, Animal
Characidae - physiology
Cyprinidae - physiology
Environmental gradient
Environmental information
Experiments
Humanities and Social Sciences
Light
Models, Biological
multidisciplinary
Nose
Predation
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Seeds
Social Behavior
Swarms
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Summary:Throughout the animal kingdom, animals frequently benefit from living in groups. Models of collective behaviour show that simple local interactions are sufficient to generate group morphologies found in nature (swarms, flocks and mills). However, individuals also interact with the complex noisy environment in which they live. In this work, we experimentally investigate the group performance in navigating a noisy light gradient of two unrelated freshwater species: golden shiners (Notemigonuscrysoleucas) and rummy nose tetra (Hemigrammus bleheri). We find that tetras outperform shiners due to their innate individual ability to sense the environmental gradient. Using numerical simulations, we examine how group performance depends on the relative weight of social and environmental information. Our results highlight the importance of balancing of social and environmental information to promote optimal group morphologies and performance.
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ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-26037-9