Why do fish school? It’s a question that divers often ask and researchers persistently work to answer. Iain Couzin and his fellow researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology at the University of Konstanz are using advanced, high-speed video to track fish behavior and better understand the science behind schooling. Check out this bioGraphic video to see how they’re doing it and learn about schooling fish.

Schooling behavior is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as an “activity in which many fish swim together, appearing to act as a single organism.” Divers see it all the time: Masses of fish dart back and forth almost completely in sync, often acting as a group to avoid predation. It’s amazing to witness how quickly these fish can react and move together. This is called collective behavior, and it happens when the fish take sensory information and translates it to movement almost immediately.
Couzin’s team used high-speed video technology to track the motion of individuals in a school 100 of times per second to better understand this behavior. They set up shop on a sparse reef in the Red Sea, using an iPad to emulate and oncoming predator and see how the fish reacted.

“Collective intelligence relies on the individual components to gather evidence themselves toward the problem, not be told what to think,” says Couzin. “We find again and again when we look at animal groups that they’ve evolved strategies to avoid having overly correlated information.”

The bottom line is that fish have evolved the ability to react almost instantaneously and school to avoid predation — it’s in their genes. But as technology advanced and humans stay curious, we will be able to learn more and more about this fascinating behavior.

Video by Spine Films for bioGraphic, an online magazine about nature and sustainability powered by the California Academy of Sciences.

Source: Sport Diver