Statistical Physics of Fish Collective Motion
Abstract
We review recent theoretical and empirical advances that recast fish schooling within a statistical-physics framework, emphasizing how heterogeneous and time-dependent interactions govern collective motion. Building on extensions of Vicsek-type models to complex and weighted social networks, we show that topology and link strength qualitatively alter flocking stability and critical thresholds, with empirical weights typically reducing global alignment. High-resolution trajectory inference reveals selective, nonreciprocal responses: individuals preferentially attend to faster neighbors, producing transient, speed-induced leadership rather than fixed hierarchies. At the mesoscopic scale, schools exhibit avalanche-like turning cascades with scale-free size and duration statistics, aftershock clustering, and an Omori-type temporal decay with a short memory. Together, these findings support a unified picture in which collective order and critical-like fluctuations coexist: alignment provides stability while near-critical variability preserves responsiveness. This synthesis highlights fish schools as a tractable experimental model for how living collectives organize, transmit and process information across scales.
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BibTeX
@misc{lamo2026statistical,
title = {{Statistical Physics of Fish Collective Motion}},
author = {Elena G. de Lamo and M. C. Miguel and R. Pastor-Satorras},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.37637},
eprint = {2609.37637},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37637},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Statistical Physics of Fish Collective Motion
AU - Elena G. de Lamo
AU - M. C. Miguel
AU - R. Pastor-Satorras
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.37637
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37637
AB - We review recent theoretical and empirical advances that recast fish schooling within a statistical-physics framework, emphasizing how heterogeneous and time-dependent interactions govern collective motion. Building on extensions of Vicsek-type models to complex and weighted social networks, we show that topology and link strength qualitatively alter flocking stability and critical thresholds, with empirical weights typically reducing global alignment. High-resolution trajectory inference reveals selective, nonreciprocal responses: individuals preferentially attend to faster neighbors, producing transient, speed-induced leadership rather than fixed hierarchies. At the mesoscopic scale, schools exhibit avalanche-like turning cascades with scale-free size and duration statistics, aftershock clustering, and an Omori-type temporal decay with a short memory. Together, these findings support a unified picture in which collective order and critical-like fluctuations coexist: alignment provides stability while near-critical variability preserves responsiveness. This synthesis highlights fish schools as a tractable experimental model for how living collectives organize, transmit and process information across scales.
ER -