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Body size affects the strength of social interactions and spatial organization of a schooling fish (Pseudomugil signifer).

ABSTRACT: While a rich variety of self-propelled particle models propose to explain the collective motion of fish and other animals, rigorous statistical comparison between models and data remains a challenge. Plausible models should be flexible enough to capture changes in the collective behaviour of animal groups at their different developmental stages and group sizes. Here, we analyse the statistical properties of schooling fish (Pseudomugil signifer) through a combination of experiments and simulations. We make novel use of a Boltzmann inversion method, usually applied in molecular dynamics, to identify the effective potential of the mean force of fish interactions. Specifically, we show that larger fish have a larger repulsion zone, but stronger attraction, resulting in greater alignment in their collective motion. We model the collective dynamics of schools using a self-propelled particle model, modified to include varying particle speed and a local repulsion rule. We demonstrate that the statistical properties of the fish schools are reproduced by our model, thereby capturing a number of features of the behaviour and development of schooling fish.

SUBMITTER: Romenskyy M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5414259 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Body size affects the strength of social interactions and spatial organization of a schooling fish (<i>Pseudomugil signifer</i>).

Romenskyy Maksym M Herbert-Read James E JE Ward Ashley J W AJW Sumpter David J T DJT

Royal Society open science 20170426 4

While a rich variety of self-propelled particle models propose to explain the collective motion of fish and other animals, rigorous statistical comparison between models and data remains a challenge. Plausible models should be flexible enough to capture changes in the collective behaviour of animal groups at their different developmental stages and group sizes. Here, we analyse the statistical properties of schooling fish (<i>Pseudomugil signifer</i>) through a combination of experiments and sim ...[more]

PMID: 28484622

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Project description:Coordinated motion and collective decision-making in fish schools result from complex interactions by which individuals integrate information about the behavior of their neighbors. However, little is known about how individuals integrate this information to take decisions and control their motion. Here, we combine experiments with computational and robotic approaches to investigate the impact of different strategies for a fish to interact with its neighbors on collective swimming in groups of rummy-nose tetra (Hemigrammus rhodostomus). By means of a data-based agent model describing the interactions between pairs of H. rhodostomus (Calovi et al., 2018), we show that the simple addition of the pairwise interactions with two neighbors quantitatively reproduces the collective behavior observed in groups of five fish. Increasing the number of interacting neighbors does not significantly improve the simulation results. Remarkably, and even without confinement, we find that groups remain cohesive and polarized when each agent interacts with only one of its neighbors: the one that has the strongest contribution to the heading variation of the focal agent, dubbed as the "most influential neighbor". However, group cohesion is lost when each agent only interacts with its nearest neighbor. We then investigate by means of a robotic platform the collective motion in groups of five robots. Our platform combines the implementation of the fish behavioral model and a control system to deal with real-world physical constraints. A better agreement with experimental results for fish is obtained for groups of robots only interacting with their most influential neighbor, than for robots interacting with one or even two nearest neighbors. Finally, we discuss the biological and cognitive relevance of the notion of "most influential neighbors". Overall, our results suggest that fish have to acquire only a minimal amount of information about their environment to coordinate their movements when swimming in groups.

Dataset Information

Body size affects the strength of social interactions and spatial organization of a schooling fish (Pseudomugil signifer).

Publications

Body size affects the strength of social interactions and spatial organization of a schooling fish (<i>Pseudomugil signifer</i>).

Similar Datasets

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