Collective Intelligence

Collective intelligence plays various roles in different types of animal groups.  A scientific study on bees revealed one example of the way in which the intelligence of the whole supersedes the lack of intelligence of any individual member.  The study, conducted on an isolated island, shed light on how a swarm of bees selected a site for a new home.  

The 12,000-member swarm had outgrown the home originally built for them by the scientists conducting the study.  Predictably, once the dwelling became over-crowded, the swarm began looking for a new home. The way in which the bees conducted the search proved fascinating and revealed some surprising skills among the members of the swarm.   

To test the intelligence and skills of the bees, the scientists monitoring them created two new potential nest sites and placed them the same distance away from the original home, in opposite directions.  One of the new homes (marked yellow) had an opening large enough for the bees to comfortably enter, but small enough to prevent predators from invading.  The other home (marked blue) was identical, except it had a larger entrance, which would allow predators to easily invade.  The scientists wondered if the bees would select the better site, and if so, how they would go about doing so.  

Predictably, the scientists observed scout bees making forays to all parts of the island. Eventually, some of the scouts found each of the two potential new home sites. Observers captured and marked the bees seen at the two sites with different colors, so their behaviors back at the original site could be observed and identified.  Remarkably, the scouts returned to the main group and began doing “dances” which apparently indicated the direction in which they'd found something stimulating enough to motivate them to shake their tails.  

These dances have been for some time recognized as a kind of language among bees.  Both groups of scouts apparently used the dances to communicate their excitement about what they'd found to the other bees in the group.  Importantly, the bees which had found the ideal new home site danced for longer periods of time than those which had found the “fixer-up” with the larger, more dangerous front door.  Additionally, bees which had discovered the optimal site began to block, or disrupt, the dances of those which had found the inferior one.   

Eventually, apparently persuaded by the scouts and their dancing, other bees began to make forays to the sites, with more of them heading to the ideal one than to the lesser one. Over time, the entire colony relocated to the better site.  This led the scientists doing the study to conclude the following: while no individual bee within the group possessed the intelligence or capability to deduce which home site would be the best one, the colony as a whole succeeded in doing so.   

Scientists recognize this swarm (or collective) intelligence in many species, including insects and mammals.  Ants, for instance, possess abilities similar to the ones observed in the studied bees; they use scent signals passed from workers to others to communicate the whereabouts and abundance of food sources located within their range. These scent signals, like the dances of the bees, act as a kind of language.   

This kind of communication is simple, when viewed as a language; it's direct and unsophisticated on a one-to-one level, but also capable of allowing the group to accomplish goals without comprehending how they're doing so.  Studies like the one done on the bees which needed to find a new home suggest creatures like insects and fish can communicate relatively complicated, important messages, though they possess no complex language like the ones used by human beings.    

Because ants and bees can and do communicate messages within their groups using what might loosely be labeled as languages which lie beyond human comprehension, some people believe fish can do the same.  This leads folks to surmise something about the behavior of fish responding to the stress of being caught, handled and released.  The theory suggests the fish might move about in patterns or emit some kind of scent after their release which would indicate the presence of danger in their midst.  

My own related experiences and observations would suggest such an assertion is false.  For example, anglers targeting dolphin in offshore waters often leave a hooked fish in the water while casting at its schoolmates circling under the boat.  In such a context, the struggle of the hooked fish wriggling against the weight of the rod and reel appears to elevate the likelihood of the others taking a bite.  I believe I've witnessed a similar phenomenon while wading with customers and friends in the bay.  

On many occasions, after a long lull between bites, one member of the group earns a strike and begins fighting a fish.  Before the first fish comes to hand, one or more of the other members of the group hooks a fish, or at least gets a bite.  Despite the distance between the first fish and the other(s), the hooked one's struggle against the angler's weight apparently sends a message which elevates the appetites of other fish which perceive the sounds and vibrations.    

Still other aspects of these situations confound people trying to draw conclusions about the ways fish might communicate with each other in schools, and whether they show any ability to read danger from their observations of others around them being hooked and caught.  Many of us have witnessed various kinds of fish changing their willingness to strike a particular type of lure on a given day.  I personally have seen it with perch in freshwater lakes and schooling dolphin on the open Gulf.  In both cases, I cast lures at fish I could see, originally witnessing their willingness to strike with a seemingly reckless appetite.  

Over time, though, and after I pulled a few members from the school, the fish became completely unwilling to strike the once-effective offering.  When this happened, they started to swim up to it before turning away without striking, eventually ignoring it altogether when it passed through the school.  In those cases, switching to a different lure caused the cycle to repeat.  I'd catch a couple more fish on the new shiny thing, then the fish would refuse it.  Eventually, in the case involving the mahi mahi, I resorted to tipping a jig with fresh dead bait.  Once they tasted something real, the schoolie dolphins wouldn't touch a naked lure again. 

Someone observing those behaviors might conclude the fish have correctly deduced a dangler related to biting at a particular type of lure, and learned to avoid doing so, after seeing their schoolmates which struck the lure hoisted out of the water.  Such a conclusion runs counter to the ones related to observations of fish becoming more likely to strike something when they perceive the struggles of their hooked schoolmates.  From all this, I draw a relatively simple conclusion, one related to the nature of the way the brains of fish work.  

Unlike organisms with more developed brains, fish don't make decisions using judgments based on their cognitive abilities.  They simply react or don't react to stimuli, depending on more basic brain functions.  Their behaviors more closely resemble reflex reactions than calculated decisions.    

Consistently, all the evidence related to swarm (school) intelligence supports the same claim with respect to the intelligence levels of individual members of these animal groups.  Individually, they possess almost no recognizable level of intelligence, as defined by the ability to make reasoned judgments, using cognitive skills.  The group dynamic, created over time, through thousands of simple messages being sent and received, generates a higher level of intelligence for the group, one which far exceeds the capabilities of any individual member.  

I recognize several ways in which these concepts apply to my favorite fish.  People often claim speckled trout change their habits and relocate in response to increasing boat traffic in an area.  Certainly, in the short term, this does occur.  Enough boats running down a shoreline will drive a school of fish into deeper water because of the accumulated responses of individual fish to the negative stimuli.  In the end, this could create a lasting response from the collective, if the boat traffic in the area remains high enough over time.    

However, this reaction doesn't indicate anything significant about the intelligence level of individuals within the school, nor about the ability of any of the fish in the school to make decisions based upon the power of reason.  The fish don't flee from the noise of the passing boats because they realize the commotion represents danger in the form of human presence.  Postulating that the fish in a bay have abandoned the shorelines over the long term because they realize humans are present and trying to catch them is fantastic thinking.