Octopus teaming, acoustics in soil biology, & new type 1 diabetes treatment strategies

Your new Strategy Toolkit newsletter (October 7, 2024)

(1) With friends like these…

Researchers in Europe (primarily Portugal and Germany) recently published their observations of cross-species collaboration and leadership, beneath the waves. Big blue octopuses (Octopus cyanea), usually in a leadership role, teamed up with several different species of fish, seemingly recruiting different team members for different predation roles. Rejection was often delivered with a well-aimed punch…

“Thus, ‘classical leadership’ can be insufficient to describe complex heterogeneous systems, in which leadership instead can be driven by both stimulating and inhibiting movement. Furthermore, group composition altered individual investment and collective action, triggering partner control mechanisms (that is, punching) and benefits for the de facto leader, the octopus. This seemingly non-social invertebrate flexibly adapts to heterospecific actions, showing hallmarks of social competence and cognition. These findings expand our current understanding of what leadership is and what sociality is.”*

* Sampaio, E., Sridhar, V.H., Francisco, F.A. et al. Multidimensional social influence drives leadership and composition-dependent success in octopus–fish hunting groups. Nat Ecol Evol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02525-2