The great escape -- fleeing fish fall in line
March 31, 2007With the unappealing prospect of being eaten, one might imagine that during a predator attack it is a case that all fish escape at once in the desperate hurry to escape as quickly as possible. However, new research indicates that this is not the case, and in fact fish in schools escape using a relatively fixed chronological order. This research was carried out at the International Marine Centre (IMC) in Sardinia, Italy, and will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology in Glasgow.
Scientists mimicked an aerial predator attack by mechanical stimulation and used a high speed camera to record responses in schools of ten grey mullet each. Individuals within a school were then ranked according to the timing of their escape. The experiment was performed ten times at 10 minute intervals on a total of seven separate schools of grey mullet. Interestingly, results suggested that there is a trend for individual fish to maintain a given rank, indicating that the chronological order of escape responses within a school is maintained in successive startle events.
Head of the research group Dr Paolo Domenici stated, “Our work is the first to show that fish maintained under the same conditions, with no differential treatment, show a tendency for keeping a relatively fixed chronological order of escape. This implies that in a given school certain individuals may have a greater influence on the escape strategies of the whole school.”
Researchers are keen to explore whether the tendency to keep a fixed chronological order of escape corresponds to a leadership maintained over a relatively long period of time.
Source: Society for Experimental Biology
-
Like a hungry teen, life on Earth had big growth spurts
Oct 27, 2009 |
3.6 / 5 (7) |
8
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
More news stories
Entire genome of extinct human decoded from fossil
(PhysOrg.com) -- In 2010, Svante Pääbo and his colleagues presented a draft version of the genome from a small fragment of a human finger bone discovered in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia. The ...
Feb 07, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (57) |
43
|
Why are there so few fish in the Earth's oceans?
(PhysOrg.com) -- A Stony Brook University researcher has found that, contrary to popular belief, there are not plenty of fish in the sea.
Feb 08, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (15) |
25
|
The power of estrogen -- male snakes attract other males
A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest ...
Feb 10, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (6) |
2
|
Miami battling invasion of giant African snails
No one knows how they got there. But an invasion of African giant snails has southern Florida in a panic over potential crop damage, disease and general yuckiness surrounding the slimy gastropods.
Feb 10, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
5
Deciding to go left or right: Researchers use device to determine that lower animals can navigate too
For decades, scientists have associated binary decision making — opting to go left or right — with higher-ranking animals, including humans. A team of Harvard researchers, however, is rewriting that ...
Feb 09, 2012 |
4 / 5 (1) |
4
|
Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...
Europeans protest controversial Internet pact
Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.
GPS court ruling leaves US phone tracking unclear
A US Supreme Court decision requiring a warrant to place a GPS device on the car of a criminal suspect leaves unresolved the bigger issue of police tracking using mobile phones, legal experts say.
Europe stakes billion-dollar bet on new rocket
A pencil-slim rocket is scheduled to lift into space from South America on Monday, carrying a billion-dollar bet that Europe can grab a juicy slice of the market to place satellites in low orbit.
Study finds that anti-diabetic medication can prevent the long-term effects of maternal obesity
In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in Dallas, Texas, researchers will report findings that show that short therapy with the anti-diabetic medication ...
Netflix settlement trims 14 pct off 4Q earnings
(AP) -- Netflix pressed the rewind button on its fourth-quarter earnings after settling allegations that the video subscription service violated a consumer-privacy law.
