Shoal of the colorful squirrelfish Sargocentron xantherythrum at the Rapture Reef, French Frigate Shoals. The French Frigate Shoals ( Hawaiian: Kānemilohai) is the largest Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The term swarm (shoaling, swarming or flocking) is applied to fish, insects, birds and microorganisms, such as bacteria, and describes a behavior of an aggregation (school) of animals of similar size and body orientation, generally cruising in the same direction. Fish are aquatic Vertebrate animals that are typically ectothermic (previously Cold-blooded) covered with scales, and equipped with two Insects ( Class Insecta) are a major group of Arthropods and the most diverse group of Animals on the Earth with over a million described Birds ( class Aves) are bipedal endothermic ( Warm-blooded) Vertebrate animals that lay eggs. Group size is a major aspect of the social environment of participants. Many animals including humans tend to live in groups Herds flocks, bands packs, parties or colonies (hereafter groups of conspecific individuals

Swarming of honey bees is a more specific term, referring to the reproductive action of an entire colony of bees (as opposed to the reproduction of single bees); see Queen bee and Honey bee life cycle. Swarming is the natural means of Reproduction of Honey bee colonies (considering the colony as the Organism rather than individual bees which cannot survive Reproduction is the Biological process by which new individual Organisms are produced In Biology, a colony (from Latin colonia) refers to several individual Organisms of the same Species living closely together usually Bees are flying Insects closely related to Wasps and Ants Bees are a Monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea The term queen bee is typically used to refer to an adult mated female that lives in a Honey bee colony or hive she is usually the mother of all the bees in the hive The honey bee life cycle, here referring exclusively to the domesticated Western honey bee, depends greatly on their social structure.

Fish

Underwater video (looping) of a shoal of Atlantic herring Clupea harengus on its migration to their spawning grounds in the Baltic Sea. Atlantic herring ( Clupea harengus) is one of the most abundant species of Fish on the planet The Baltic Sea is a Brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N Latitude and from 20°E to 26°E Longitude. With such high speed they can migrate over thousands of kilometers. Some scientists are of the opinion that cruising in a close group minimizes energy consumption, one fish utilizing the pressure field created by the next fish. In the North Atlantic, herring cruise between Norway and Greenland every year. Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat meaning "Land of the Greenlanders" Grønland is a self-governing Danish Province located between the

Shoal can describe any group of fish, including mixed-species groups, reserving "school" for more closely knit groups of the same species swimming in a highly synchronized and polarized manner.

Fish derive many benefits from shoaling behaviour including defense against predators (through better predator detection and by diluting the chance of capture), enhanced foraging success, and higher success in finding a mate. Foraging theory is a branch of Behavioral ecology that studies the foraging behavior of animals in response to the environment in which the animal lives It is also likely that fish benefit from shoal membership through increased hydrodynamic efficiency. Fluid dynamics is the sub-discipline of Fluid mechanics dealing with fluid flow: Fluids ( Liquids and Gases in motion

Juvenile herring hunt in shoals for very alert and evasive copepods : The copepods can sense with their antennae the pressure-wave of the approaching herring and react with a fast escape jump. Copepods are a group of small Crustaceans found in the sea and nearly every freshwater habitat and they constitute the biggest source of protein in the oceans Antennae (singular antenna) are paired Appendages connected to the front-most segments of Arthropods In Crustaceans they are The length of the jump is quite consistent. The fish arrange themselves in a grid of this characteristic jumplength. The copepods can dart about 80 times before they tire out. It takes 60 milliseconds to spread out the antennae again, and this time slot is used by the herring to finally snap a copepod. A lone juvenile herring would never be able to catch a large copepod ("Synchropredation" — results from in situ videos taken from the ATOLL laboratory). The Antarctic Technology Offshore Lagoon Laboratory (ATOLL University was a floating oceanographic laboratory for in situ observation experiments and for field

Fish use many traits to choose shoalmates. Generally they prefer larger shoals, shoalmates of their own species, shoalmates similar in size and appearance to themselves, healthy fish, and kin (when recognized).

The "oddity effect" posits that any shoal member that stands out in appearance will be preferentially targeted by predators. This may explain why fish prefer to shoal with individuals that resemble them. The oddity effect would thus tend to homogenize shoals.

One puzzling aspect of shoal selection is how a fish can choose to join a shoal of animals similar to themselves, given that it cannot know its own appearance. Experiments with zebrafish have shown that shoal preference is a learned ability, not innate. The zebrafish or zebra danio, Danio rerio, a Tropical Freshwater Fish belonging to the minnow family ( Cyprinidae) A zebrafish tends to associate with shoals that resemble shoals in which it was reared (that is, a form of imprinting). This article is about the psychological term For other meanings see Imprinting.

Other open questions of shoaling behaviour include identifying which individuals are responsible for the direction of shoal movement. In the case of migratory movement, most members of a shoal seem to know where they are going. Many types of fish undertake migrations on a regular basis on time scales ranging from daily to annual and with distances ranging from a few meters to thousands of kilometers In the case of foraging behaviour, ethologist Stephan Reebs, writing in the journal Animal Behaviour, reported that captive shoals of golden shiner (a kind of minnow) were led by a small number of experienced individuals who knew when and where food was available. The golden shiner, Notemigonus crysoleucas, is a Cyprinid Fish native to eastern North America. ^[1]

Quotes

Shoal of Silver moony at Madagascar

• "One of the most striking behaviours of a shoal is its synchronization. The Silver moony also known as Mono Argentus, Silver moonfish, Fingerfish or Malayan Angel, is a Perciform fish usually found Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic) is an Island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern Hundreds of small fish glide in unison, more like a single organism than a collection of individuals" Hiro-Sato Niwa, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1996: 181,p 47

Examples

This is a partial list of animals that swarm. The Journal of Theoretical Biology is a Scientific journal about Theoretical biology; dealing with theoretical issues as well as mathematical

• Ants
• Birds
• Eels
• Grasshoppers (Locusts)
• Honey bees
• Termites

See also

• Boid
• Herd
• Swarm Intelligence
• Flocking (behavior)

External links

New York times article on investigations into swarming

Christian Jacob, Ph.D - uninteresting Swarm computer simulation

Lessons from Mother Nature on How to Manage Traffic - Daily Planet on Discovery Channel

References