Exploring predator interaction with a school of prey fish using a flow-physics informed agent-based model

We employ a recently developed flow-physics informed agent-based model of collective swimming of fish to examine the interaction of predators with a school of fish. The novel features of this agent-based model are that (a) it is based on the balance of forces and moments on the fish; (b) it includes interaction with the vortex wakes of fish; and (c) the model is parametrized via data from direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a swimming fish. Using this model, we examine the hypothesis that swimming in schools improves the average rate of survival for prey fish. We also examine the effect of different predator evasion strategies and explore the collective behavior that emerges from these predator-prey interactions.