Speaker
Description
Collective signals which are used to attract mates, defend territories or deter predators have been observed in different species ranging from social insects, over fire-flies to fish and birds. In this talk I will show an example of fish schools which collectively produce waves that delay attacks by bird predators and reduce their success probability. Different mechanisms which result in such antipredator effects are conceivable such as predator confusion which blocks the information processing of birds or a perception advertisement which might signal to the bird that an attack is unprofitable. High degrees of relatedness between individuals (as, for example, in eusocial insects) has frequently been invoked as an explanation for the evolution of collective signals. However, it appears that collective behaviours which might be signals are also found in other taxonomic groups where individuals are clearly unrelated. I will explore conditions under which fish collective waves might have evolved a signaling function and discuss this in the context of other examples where collective signal production between unrelated individuals has been reported.
