The role of chemical communication in fish collectives

Can information about stress states be transmitted among individuals in a fish collective via chemical communication based on excreted hormones? CASCB member Aneesh P. H. Bose aims to develop and validate a methodology to quantify waterborne hormones from water baths that contain fish in different physiological states. This work will then allow experiments to test whether excreted hormones can act as important informational cues in fish collectives. Five endocrinologists and evolutionary biologists are working together on this project entitled Collective transmission of psychological states and behaviour in fish, which takes a novel perspective on information spread in animal collectives. Bose and his team want to lay the groundwork for future experiments on a multitude of topics, including stress transmission, social buffering and social evolution.