Subcritical escape waves in schooling fish.

Area of Science:

• Collective dynamics
• Theoretical physics
• Animal behavior

Background:

• Theoretical physics suggests optimal information processing occurs near critical transitions.
• However, the costs of criticality in noisy biological systems are often overlooked.
• Living systems may benefit from proximity to critical points, like enhanced sensitivity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether fish schools operate near critical transitions.
• To understand how environmental risk influences their proximity to criticality.
• To explore the trade-offs between sensitivity and robustness in collective behavior.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of startle cascades in fish schools.
• Modeling of individual detection error costs (true and false alarms).
• Quantification of distance to criticality in relation to perceived risk.

Main Results:

• Fish school startle cascades are subcritical, not at maximal responsiveness.
• The distance to criticality decreases as perceived environmental risk increases.
• Subcriticality allows modulation of sensitivity and robustness based on environmental conditions.

Conclusions:

• Fish schools manage a trade-off between sensitivity and robustness by being subcritical.
• Modulating distance to criticality is a strategy for dealing with environmental risk and noise.
• An individual-based, context-dependent view is crucial for understanding collective information processing.