THE SIMULATION OF FISH SCHOOLS IN COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENTAL-DATA

Fish do not need a leader or external stimuli for their school organization. The model presented shows that the group movement of a school can be maintained by interactions in which each individual controls its movement in relation to its neighbours. Our three-dimensional simulations reproduce the typical characteristics of real schools, if the behaviour of the single fish is based on four patterns: attraction, repulsion, parallel orientation and averaging the influences of at least four neighbours. The results of our simulations agree with experimental data in many points, as is demonstrated here for the polarization, nearest neighbour distance and internal dynamics.