FishSchooling

Fish Schooling

Schooling is a social behavior in which fish align and stay close to one another as members of a group.

What types of fish school?

• how common is schooling behavior
• Types of fish most likely to school
  • Reef fish vs. open-water fish
    • relative advantages
• differences between fish schools and pods/groups of marine mammals

Why fish school

• Predator avoidance
  • Difficulty of tracking movement of a single fish
  • Decreased vulnerability to predators
• Cooperation
  • Sharks and barracuda sometimes hunt in groups, for example
  • Less likely to be long-term schooling events
• Hydrodynamics
  • Schooling can make it easier for fish to change direction, move more quickly
  • examples and explanation
• Mating events and social behavior in fishes
  • describe
  • examples

How fish school

• Lateral Line System
  • Define Lateral Line System, physiological
  • Explain
  • Mention that fish can school even when blinded
• Hormonal signals
  • Basis of chemical signaling

Works Cited

1. Reebs, S. 2001. Fish Behavior in the Aquarium and in the Wild. Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press; 252 p.
2. Brown, C., Laland, K. and Krause J. 2006. Fish Cognition and Behavior. Oxford, U.K. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.; 328 p.
3. A Blind Fish Can School http://www.sciencemag.org/content/194/4268/963.abstract
4. Schooling as a Strategy for Taxis in a Noisy Environment http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/768/art%253A10.1023%252FA%253A1006574607845.pdf?auth66=1393605258_95cdded1d81e235d25cae2002b5dcd30&ext=.pdf
5. Predatory Fish Select for Coordinated Collective Motion in Virtual Prey http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6099/1212.full?sid=4e420d1a-bf0a-4d32-8c61-1a1949dcd152#ref-14