Unusual partnerships - a great example of collaboration

If you have ever watched one of those survival programmes, you can see that it can be tough to catch fish. So as with any problem, it is helpful to consider if working together would improve results.

Like any good collaboration, you need to find a partner that can complement your skills, and this is just what has happened in southern Brazil.

Fishermen couldn't catch the small mullet from the shore. Firstly the water is dirty and hides them, and they often don't come in to shore. But lone dolphins can't catch them either, as the fish move in large fast groups.

Unfortunately, we have yet to find out who approached whom in this collaboration. Still, researchers have observed how dolphins herd mullet towards the fishermen in Laguna, Santa Catarina, for the last decade. The humans watch and look for a signal, often a dolphin diving and then cast their nets. They catch large numbers in their nets, and the smaller groups left are more accessible for the dolphins to catch.

Researchers have calculated that dolphins increase their survival rate by 13% through the collaborative fishing, and the fishermen are 17x more likely to catch fish when the dolphins are around.

It would be great to hear of other unusual examples of effective collaborations.

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Unusual partnerships - a great example of collaboration

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