Abstract
In moving animal groups, social interactions play a key role in the ability of individuals to achieve coordinated motion. However, a large number of environmental and cognitive factors are able to modulate the expression of these interactions and the characteristics of the collective movements that result from these interactions. Here, we use a data-driven fish school model to quantitatively investigate the impact of perceptual and cognitive factors on coordination and collective swimming patterns. The model describes the interactions involved in the coordination of burst-and-coast swimming in groups of Hemigrammus rhodostomus. We perform a comprehensive investigation of the respective impacts of two interactions strategies between fish based on the selection of the most or the two most influential neighbors, of the range and intensity of social interactions, of the intensity of individual random behavioral fluctuations, and of the group size, on the ability of groups of fish to coordinate their movements. We find that fish are able to coordinate their movements when they interact with their most or two most influential neighbors, provided that a minimal level of attraction between fish exist to maintain group cohesion. A minimal level of alignment is also required to allow the formation of schooling and milling. However, increasing the strength of social interactions does not necessarily enhance group cohesion and coordination. When attraction and alignment strengths are too high, or when the heading random fluctuations are too large, schooling and milling can no longer be maintained and the school switches to a swarming phase. Increasing the interaction range between fish has a similar impact on collective dynamics as increasing the strengths of attraction and alignment. Finally, we find that coordination and schooling occurs for a wider range of attraction and alignment strength in small group sizes.
Highlights
Increasing the interaction range has a similar impact on collective dynamics as increasing the strength of social interactions
The data-driven model considered in the present work aims at studying the diversity and plasticity of collective behavior in a specific species of fish (Hemigrammus rhodostomus)
The general structure of our burst-and-coast model can be exploited to describe other species of fish performing intermittent swimming. This is for instance the case of zebra fish (Danio rerio) for which the interaction functions have been measured in [45], and where the range of interactions were found to be much shorter, contributing to explain the fact that zebra fish display a weaker collective social behavior than H. rhodostomus
Summary
Many organisms living in groups or societies, from bacteria to vertebrates, are able to collectively coordinate their movements [1, 2]. These collective behaviors have important functional consequences for group members. Analyzing the behavioral and cognitive mechanisms that govern these coordination phenomena in different species is a crucial step to understand the evolution of sociality and more generally the evolution of biological complexity [11–15]. Several phenomenological models based on specific rules can qualitatively reproduce the collective motion of real fish schools. The main problem remains the lack of experimental validation of the hypotheses these models are based on, and those concerning the behavioral rules and interactions at the individual scale. Very different rules can produce similar collective states
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