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I feel in order for a species to adapt they need to experience a form of social interaction as well as obtain social behaviors in order to survive.

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The development of a highly specialized sensory structure unique to fish, known as the lateral line, which can detect vibrations in the water helps them to school.The lateral line is made up of neuromasts, which are similar to the hair cells found in the human ear. This enables schooling fish to sense changes in water currents and respond accordingly.

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- Alone, a fish is easy prey. However, among millions, or even twenty, the chances of getting eaten fall dramatically
- Swimming in schools reduces friction on fish’s bodies and the energy required to swim.
- They also create dazzling colors and shimmers in a tightly knit group, causing confusion among predators. This makes it harder to hunt them, as well as throw them for a loop.
-  A complicated mechanic that’s built into each fish’s instinct alerts them when another fish near them has moved, and they move with it

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There's safety in numbers. Children form close groups of friends that are nearly inseparable, so they never can be singled out for bullying. Buffalo stay close for higher odds of survival. If a predator were to approach them, they'd be among ten. Most predators wouldn't eat the whole herd, only a select few.

So is the same case as fish. The ocean is an endless expanse full of predators. Alone, a fish is easy prey. However, among millions, or even twenty, the chances of getting eaten fall dramatically. It's a gamble of life or death, but the odds are for them. Some of them are more than likely to get eaten; but what are the odds that that one fish is the one to be eaten? A lot better than being alone. In fact, schooling is so efficient than 80% of known fish swim in schools as a survival mechanism.

However, not all fish swim in schools just for survival. For some instinct pushes them into groups. While fish that school do so instinctually, some school for reasons quite different than the other fish. Piranhas are the perfect example of this. Rather than schooling to survive, they school to kill. Alone a piranha would no doubt be a vicious predator, but in a school they are nearly unstoppable. It's said that a school of piranhas can strip a cow to the bone in under a minute.

Schooling also provides some advantages other than survival. Swimming in schools reduces friction on fish's bodies, all the while relieving them of too much excess work. Swimming in schools reduces the amount of energy required to swim, providing a nice perk in case they need to make a quick escape.

They also create dazzling colors and shimmers in a tightly knit group, causing confusion among predators. Individuals get lost in a blur of colors that appears to be one group, making it harder for any potential predators to single out fish. This makes it harder to hunt them, as well as throw them for a loop.

What's truly amazing though is the fish's ability to keep the school so close at all times. They move in nearly perfect unison, never stumbling or straying from the school. It's almost as if they become one entity when swimming in schools. There's no individual, just a flurry of patterns and fins.

It's no accident that they can maintain their swimming patterns so closely. A complicated mechanic that's built into each fish's instinct alerts them when another fish near them has moved, and they move with it. Coupled with their flat heads and eyes pointing horizontally, the fish can move in unison with ease. Each fish has the ability to control the group's movement, because schooling is not similar to follow the leader.

When all's said and done, schooling is nothing short of amazing. It's a complex system that not only is pretty and eye pleasing, but also is an effective method of survival. The ocean's eco system has evolved around it, and humans look down in fascination as they swim in unison. While we still have much to learn about the ocean, schooling is something that we now know.

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There's safety in numbers. Children form close groups of friends that are nearly inseparable, so they never can be singled out for bullying. Buffalo stay close for higher odds of survival. If a predator were to approach them, they'd be among ten. Most predators wouldn't eat the whole herd, only a select few.

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In biology, any group of fish that stay together for social reasons are shoaling and if the group is swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner, they are schooling

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Exactly how fish pull off this schooling has remained a biological mystery but scientist know "schooling is not a learned behavior, and instead show it relies on several regions of the fish genome." Fish usually exhibit schooling during mature phases of their life cycle. Fish evolved to swim in schools to better protect themselves from predators, improve their foraging and swim more efficiently.

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How do fish swim in schools, effortlessly coordinating their every move? The answer appears to be ingrained in their genes.

The genetic basis underlying the complex, social behavior of schooling is revealed in two studies published Sept. 12 in the journal Current Biology. The studies suggest that schooling is not a learned behavior, and instead show it relies on several regions of the fish genome.

The findings may point to the genetic underpinning of why humans also are social, and tend to gather in groups, some experts said, although others debated this.

Stickleback to school

Most fish exhibit schooling during some phase of their life cycle, research has shown. Fish evolved to swim in schools to better protect themselves from predators, improve their foraging and swim more efficiently.

Unlike shoaling, in which fish merely swim loosely together, schooling requires coordinated body positions and synchronized movement. Fish in schools need to sense their environment with high accuracy, maintain awareness of their position within the school, and respond quickly to changes in both water currents and movement of the group.

Exactly how fish pull off this feat has remained elusive.

In one of the new studies, researchers led by Catherine Peichel, a human biology researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, studied sticklebacks, small fish about 3 inches (8 centimeters) long that live in both salt and fresh water. [ Photos: The Freakiest-Looking Fish]

The researchers created a handful of fake fish models, suspended them in the water and whirled them about, to entice the real stickleback to join schools.

By crossbreeding one kind of stickleback prone to schooling with another kind of stickleback more reluctant to join a school, the researchers identified two genomic regions in sticklebacks associated with schooling. One of these regions is also associated with development of a highly specialized sensory structure unique to fish, known as the lateral line, which can detect vibrations in the water.

The lateral line is made up of cells called neuromasts, which are similar to the hair cells found in the human ear and enable the fish to sense changes in water currents and respond accordingly.

In the second study, researchers led by Clifford Tabin of Harvard Medical School in Boston studied the Mexican tetra, a freshwater fish also about 3 inches long that lives in open rivers and lakes, and sometimes in the streams of caves. The cave-dwelling variety is blind, and largely albino.

The surface-dwelling tetra swim in schools, but the blind cavefish do not, which suggested to the researchers that vision is important to schooling. But after crossbreeding the two varieties and conducting a genetic analysis, the team determined that as the cavefish evolved, they lost the ability to school, and they lost their vision in separate events.

This provided more evidence that schooling behavior is genetic-based and not learned, the researchers said.

Both research teams identified only genetic regions, not the exact genes, controlling the schooling behavior.

Of fish and men

The teams remained split, however, on how these findings may relate to humans. Anna Greenwood, a member of Peichel's team, said the findings could be applicable to complex social human behaviors.

"Because an evolutionarily shared neural circuit, as well as some of the same neurochemicals and hormones, control social behavior in all vertebrates, what we learn about genetic changes in fish could ultimately provide insight into human behavioral variation," Greenwood told LiveScience.

Hans Hofmann, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin, who was not involved in either study, said the stickleback work rebuts the assertion that human behavior is too complex to understand.

"I think it shows that even such complex behaviors associated with other individuals in a very rigid and organized manner can be dissected genetically," Hofmann said. "Studies like this tell us that we might get there eventually."

Tabin, however, said the findings of his Mexican cavefish study "do not tell us anything at all about human social behavior."

But he also said that both studies can tell researchers much about the evolution of schooling behaviors in fish, and that's what makes it worthwhile.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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New Study Sheds Light On THIS Fishy Behavior

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How do fish swim in schools, effortlessly coordinating their every move? The answer appears to be ingrained in their genes. The genetic basis underlying the complex, social behavior of schooling is revealed in two studies published Sept. 12 in the journal Current Biology.

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Fish evolved to swim in schools to better protect themselves from predators through better predator detection and by diluting the chance of individual capture. They improve their foraging and swim more efficiently and higher success in finding a mate.