A school of fish. (Photo by Tom Weilenmann via Flickr CC BY 2.0 SA)
For fish, blending with the group can be a matter of life or death. Just like humans prefer either the right or the left hand as their dominant limb, fish choose either the right or the left as their dominant swimming direction. But unlike human dexterity, in this bias to turning either right or left is vital to group interactions within fish schools. A group of researchers from University of Saskatchewan found that fish whose turning bias is congruent with the majority of the group are better at escaping predators. They also found when faced with danger, fish are more likely to coordinate the direction of their turns to conform with the rest of the group.
Authors:
Douglas P. Chivers, Mark I. McCormick, Bridie J. M. Allan, Matthew D. Mitchell, Emanuel J. Gonçalves, Reid Bryshun, Maud C. O. Ferrari
Corresponding author:
Doug Chivers, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 5E2
Original paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences on October 26, 2016.
