Problems and Prospects of Studying Schooling Behavior of Fish

Abstract

The problems and prospects of studying schooling behavior of fish have been considered. Areas that remain little developed or have controversial and contradictory results have been noted: the hydrodynamics and energetics of fish swimming in a school, the mechanisms of fish interaction and the dissemination of information within a school, the principles of forming a coordinated school response to external stimuli and the rapid decay of the reaction, interaction between different schools during their collision or when being part of large aggregations of many schools, patterns of rapid change in the forms of a school. It has been shown that there are no clear ideas about the formation of mechanisms in the ontogeny of fish that underlie coordinated schooling behavior. The sensory base of schooling behavior requires further study. The origin and evolution of schooling behavior and the formation of emergent properties of a school based on individual actions of fish remain at the level of assumptions and hypotheses. The interspecies differences in the schooling behavior of fish, the interaction of schooling fish with fishing gear and adaptation to them are poorly studied. Attention has been drawn to the need for verification in nature of information obtained in laboratory conditions and on aquarium fish that have undergone selection. The necessity of using new technologies, devices, methods of mathematical modeling and other approaches for the intensification of experimental research has been emphasized. Knowledge of the schooling behavior of fish is important for elucidating the general patterns of social behavior of large associations of animals. The development of research is hampered by the lack of generally accepted terminology and quantitative criteria for schooling behavior, which would make it possible to adequately assess, compare, and analyze it. An exhaustive definition of a fish school has been given.