New article in Outside JEB!

In my new popular science article in the Outside JEB section of the Journal of Experimental Biology, I describe the results from the recent Currier et al. 2021 paper in the Journal of Fish Biology, which shows that fishes with vastly different life histories use varying strategies to limit their energetic costs of movement. Using a fish species that is social (bluegill sunfish Lepomis macrochirus) versus a competitive fish with strong social hierarchies that can be found swimming alone (rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss), these researchers set about figuring out how these animals maximize efficiency as they move through their habitat. The more cooperative and social sunfish reduced swimming costs by moving with a social group. The more competitive and reclusive trout instead used static obstacles in the flow to reduce their movement costs. Studies like this highlight the importance of taking an animal´s lifestyle into account when speculating about their strategies for saving energy. 

Check out the article here: https://jeb.biologists.org/content/224/5/JEB235200.full