The effect of aggregation on visibility in open water

Graeme D. Ruxton*, Sönke Johnsen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Aggregation is a common life-history trait in open-water taxa. Qualitative understanding of how aggregation by prey influences their encounter rates with predators is critical for understanding pelagic predator-prey interactions and trophic webs.We extend a recently developed theory on underwater visibility to predict the consequences of grouping in open-water species in terms of increased visual detection of groups by predators. Our model suggests that enhanced visibility will be relatively modest, with maximum detection distance typically only doubling for a 100-fold increase in the number of prey in a group. This result suggests that although larger groups are more easily detected, this cost to aggregation will in many cases be dominated by benefits, especially through risk dilution in situations where predators cannot consume all members of a discovered group. This, in turn, helps to explain the ubiquity of grouping across a great variety of open-water taxa.

Original languageEnglish
Article number20161463
Number of pages7
JournalProceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume283
Issue number1839
Early online date21 Sept 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Sept 2016

Keywords

  • Anti-predator defence
  • Attack abatement
  • Dilution of risk
  • Grouping
  • School
  • Shoal

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