Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology awarded $940,649 to the University of California, Irvine under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) for a collaborative research project investigating the evolution and mechanics of schooling behavior in Neotropical tetras. Funded from August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2029, the project will employ biomechanics, computational modeling, and comparative evolutionary methods to examine how coordinated group behaviors originate and persist across fish species. The research will generate scientific outputs including macroevolutionary trend data, individual-level coordination analyses, and mechanistic insights into the relationship between behavioral traits and schooling performance across diverse tetra species.

Beyond the primary research objectives, the award supports workforce development and educational advancement through training of graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and undergraduate students at UCI and the University of Southern California. Funded educational products include new teaching modules integrating biomechanics, evolution, and collective behavior into biology and engineering curricula, as well as a workshop on phylogenetic comparative methods for physiology research. The research findings are expected to have applications beyond evolutionary biology, including potential development of coordination and communication algorithms for autonomous vehicles and drone swarms.