Social Pressure Triggers Dieting In Fish

It's the hackneyed backbone of many movies and television shows about high school: the popular kids get all the dates and constantly threaten the freaks and geeks, who humbly remain on their lower rung of the social ladder to avoid provoking any physical or social abuse. These stereotypes and simplifications don't tend to play out in real life—unless you're a tiny coral-dwelling fish called a goby. Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University recently discovered that the cool kids of goby social circles use the threat of expulsion from the group to deter subordinates from trying to climb the mating ladder. In a goby group, only the two largest two fish (a male and a female) mate—the rest are non-breeding females, who are consistently smaller than their next largest rivals. The researchers' latest findings revealed that the reason subordinates are smaller isn't ...