Scientists Pawel Romanczuk and Ralf Kurvers will explore swarm intelligence in fish and humans, investigating the role of single individuals and social interactions in collective decisions, also exploring when collectives make good decisions, and when they go wrong.
In this talk, David Bierbach will present results from fascinating experiments with a clonal fish, the Amazon molly (Poecilia formosa), to test whether near-identical rearing conditions can dampen individual differences in behavior. In sharp contrast to predictions, researchers found substantial individual variation in behavior among genetically identical individuals raised under highly standardized environments.
But how does this individuality allow swarms, herds and shoals of animals to perform highly coordinated collective behaviors like synchronized movements or rapid consensus decision-making? Using a robotic fish, Bierbach and his team also explored the effects of individual differences in behavior on collective movement, migration and the emergence of group-specific behavioral patterns, and showed that individual behavior plays a crucial role in shaping collective patterns, with some animal personalities having greater impact on the group’s performance than others.
Watch the interview of David Bierbach for the BSW here.
Please register on the BSW website here
