Collective Behavior

Genetic changes can affect collective behavior

Oct 2022, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-genetic-affect-behavior.html

If you think pandemic lockdowns are crazy, just wait.

Genetic changes in individuals can not only alter the behavior of groups, but can also provide a methodological approach for testing existing models of collective behavior experimentally.

Researchers used the CRISPR-Cas9 technique to edit specific genes in individual larvae. In doing so, they were able to show that mutations of the genes scn1lab and disc1 altered the individual behavioral responses of the mutated animals to visual stimuli and, consequentially, the behavior of the group.

The zebrafish larvae with the scn1lab mutation kept a greater distance between themselves and others than their peers without the mutation. [I hear social distancing for example]

via University of Konstanz: Roy Harpaz et al, Collective behavior emerges from genetically controlled simple behavioral motifs in zebrafish, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abi7460

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abi7460