Continuity of Schooling Behavior of Fish

Abstract

Schooling in fish manifests itself in various forms corresponding to the surrounding external situation, as well as the age and condition of fish. An uninterrupted series of schooling manifestation forms, easily changing and passing into each other in all types of sequences, is an inseparable schooling behavior continuum. Transitions from one form to another are dynamic, they usually occur within a few seconds, they are made constantly and repeatedly during the entire time of a school’s existence. The range of possible forms of schooling behavior is a property inherent in a group of ecologically close species. The concept of a schooling behavior continuum partially solves the terminological dilemma of separating the concepts of a school and a shoal, since it allows us to confidently interpret the temporary dispersal of a school not as a transition of schooling fish to a non-schooling state and the formation of a true shoal, but as fish staying in one of the forms of schooling, which at any moment can quickly be replaced by another form. In the schooling behavior continuum, different forms may be represented differently in different groups of fish. Schooling behavior, in turn, is organically included in the spectrum of other possible social manifestations characteristic of a particular fish species.