Costs and benefits of swarming behaviour in mysids: does orientation and position in the swarm matter?

Mysids (Paramesopodopsis rufa) were tethered in both swarm and school formations in a flow tank to test whether food capture was influenced by orientation or position in the aggregation. Neither orientation nor position exerted a significant influence on food capture success. However, the two formations differed in that certain positions in the polarized configuration were significantly correlated. In addition individuals at the front of the aggregation captured more food (though non-significantly) with a significantly higher degree of variation. This experiment has demonstrated the feasibility of measuring food capture success in different locations within an aggregation of crustaceans.