This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Fish schools are a marvel of navigation. They move in concert without any one fish leading the way.
Instead, their coordinated movements arise from individual fish continually adjusting their movements based on their neighbors. But how much of this social information each fish processes at once is less well understood. To find out, Guy Theraulaz at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France and colleagues took a real fish and let it interact with a group of digital fish in a virtual reality setting.
No, the fish, a rummy-nose tetra, did not wear a VR headset. It swam freely in a bowl while real-time images of virtual fish were projected onto the walls around it. The research team programmed the four virtual fish with different rules of interaction, such as responding to the one or two most influential neighbors or all four (the real fish plus the digital varieties).
They ran eight one-hour trials for each setup. For example, in one trial, the real fish swam with virtual fish that responded to only one neighbor, while in another trial, the virtual fish responded to all four. At the same time, a camera tracked the fish's movements.
The scientists also conducted computer simulations to see what would happen when the simulated real fish followed the same interaction rules as the virtual varieties, or different combinations of those rules. The findings, published in the journal PRX Life, showed that staying in sync comes down to a rather simple strategy. At first glance, when the virtual fish responded to more neighbors, the overall group moved in a tighter, more aligned pattern.
But looking at the living fish revealed a different story. Across all the trials, the real fish behaved as if it were primarily responding to its single most influential neighbor at any given moment. And this partner could change as the group moved around.
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