Schooling Fish: A Multisensory Approach

Abstract

Abstract What is the adaptive value of schooling and how do fish manage to synchronize movements? Visual confusion and possibly more significant, complex, overlapping acoustic signals that confuse predators' octavolateralis and electrosensory system may increase fitness. Schooling may create a weblike, information chain: Movements of informed fish cause physical change in the substrate and multisensory information reaches the brain of the nearest neighbor, generating behavioral change, resulting in physical change in the substrate and so forth. A multisensory approach may improve the understanding of schooling behavior. The beat in music possibly echoes a multisensory, social phenomenon that originated in our vertebrate ancestors.