2023/10/27 by Yangfan Zhang, George Lauder · 1 voice
Environmental Science · #Fish Ecology and Management Studies #Physiological and biochemical adaptations #Fish biology, ecology, and behavior
paper · pdf · doi:10.7554/elife.90352.1
openalex publication_date 2023/10/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
Abstract Many animals moving through fluids exhibit highly coordinated group movement that is thought to reduce the cost of locomotion. However, direct energetic measurements demonstrating the energy-saving benefits of fluid-mediated group movements remain elusive. By characterizing both aerobic and anaerobic metabolic energy contributions in schools of Giant danio (Devario aequipinnatus) fish, we discovered that fish schools have a J-shaped metabolism–speed curve, with a minimum metabolic cost at ∼1 body length s-1. We demonstrate that fish schools reduce total energy expenditure (TEE) per tail beat by up to 56% compared to solitary fish. When reaching their maximum sustained swimming speed, fish swimming in schools had a 44% higher maximum aerobic performance and used 65% lower non-aerobic energy for high-speed swimming compared to solitary individuals, which lowered the TEE and total cost of transport by up to 53%, near the lowest recorded for any aquatic organism. Fish in schools also recovered from exercise 43% faster than solitary fish. The non-aerobic energetic savings that occurs when fish in schools actively swim at high speed can considerably improve both peak and repeated performance which is likely to be beneficial for evading predators. These energetic savings may underlie the prevalence of coordinated group locomotion in fishes.