Effective Leadership in Fish: Finding Nemo

How does the group of fish in Finding Nemo coordinate their movements to smoothly make various shapes with minimal communication? All these movements are contributed to what is called collective movement, however the mystery behind the origins and reasons for collective behavior in groups of fish has baffled many. It has been traditionally thought that fish were leader-less, but they tended to stay in groups; either a shoal or a school. Even though they have different meanings they are used interchangeably today. A shoal is any group that stays together for social reasons, while a school is a group that demonstrates multiple rather complex behavioral patterns. Therefore, any group of fish is a shoal but not all shoals are schools ("Shoaling Behavior in Fish," 2014). The reasons behind these groups of fish can be attributed to the increase of protection against predators, increased foraging success, increased chances of finding a mate, increased likelihood of reaching a certain destination, and increased hydrodynamic movement. The leaders are either whoever is in front in that point in time or it is a set leader with a natural born tendency to be bold and make decisions on the groups behalf, despite social differences. The latter form of leadership is what is displayed in Finding Nemo when only one “voice” is telling the rest of the fish to create the formations. The evolutionary history in groups of fish has allowed for a divergence in forms of leadership to these two distinct forms, heavily depending on the situation. The more effective of the two leaderships is the one with a set leader because they tend to be more knowledgeable about the location of sources (Couzin, Krause, Franks, & Levin, 2004).

Despite the type of leadership...

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... Krause, J., Hoare, D., Krause, S., Hemelrijk, C. K., & Rubenstein, D. I. (2000). Leadership in fish shoals. Fish and Fisheries, 1(1), 82-89. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-2979.2000.tb00001.x

5. Nakayama, S. (2013, August 28). Leaders Are Born, Not Made, Fish Study Finds. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/leaders-are-born-not-made-fish-study-finds/

6. Nakayama, S., Harcourt, J. L., Johnstone, R. A., & Manica, A. (2012). Initiative, Personality, and Leadership in Pairs of Foraging Fish [Abstract]. PLoS ONE, 7(5). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0036606

7. Shoaling Behavior in Fish. (2014). Retrieved April 22, 2014, from http://www.sju.edu/int/academics/cas/biology/resources/biodiversity/fishcam/shoaling.html

8. Vugt, M. V., Ahuja, A., & Vugt, M. V. (2011). Naturally selected: The evolutionary science of leadership. New York: HarperBusiness.