Natural-Intelligence

Genetically identical fish can develop strikingly different collective behaviours despite growing up under standardised conditions. Researchers followed ten groups of four Amazon mollies over 55 days, recording how their movements and social relationships developed.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria use physical collisions with neighbours as information, dynamically switching between disorder and coordinated movement without chemical signalling.

African elephants appear to make their calls more alike as some group conversations unfold, potentially helping a herd coordinate a shared course of action.

Bacterial collectives combine signalling, division of labour, environmental memory and local decision rules to achieve capabilities unavailable to individual cells.

The collective sounds of a healthy coral reef provide environmental information that influences where young marine organisms settle. Researchers recorded the acoustic environment of a functioning Hawaiian reef, including fish vocalisations and snapping crustaceans, then replayed those sounds around artificial reef structures.

Sperm cooperation turns out to be widespread across arthropods rather than an evolutionary curiosity. Researchers mapped sperm traits across hundreds of insects, spiders, crustaceans, centipedes and related animals and found that sperm conjugation — cells physically joining into coordinated groups — has repeatedly appeared, disappeared and reappeared over roughly 600 million years.

An injured plant root can transmit a mechanical warning through its vascular system far faster than the calcium signals normally associated with plant defence.

Swarming bacteria and human tissue cells spontaneously create large-scale flow patterns whose dynamics cannot be explained by conventional passive-matter physics.

Fire ants demonstrate several distinct ways that useful group-level behaviour can emerge from decentralised interactions. Research presented by collective-behaviour specialist Takao Sasaki includes workers dynamically self-assembling into pontoon bridges across water, rafts collectively selecting a swimming direction toward visual landmarks, and colonies depositing particles to construct paths across difficult substrates.

Gut bacteria coordinate through multiple overlapping communication channels rather than relying on a single signalling mechanism. A new review describes three major pathways: quorum sensing changes gene expression as bacterial population density changes; extracellular vesicles transport proteins, nucleic acids and signalling molecules between cells; and horizontal gene transfer distributes genetic capabilities through microbial communities.