<p>Aquatic animals must continuously gather information about their surroundings to cope with the changing conditions of their environment. In the current study we provide insights on information transfer among wild tropical fish schools, within the context of two survival-centric tasks: predator avoidance and detecting food sources. We investigated intra-species information transfer among zebrafish (<i>Danio rerio</i>) shoals and inter-species information transfer from flying barb (<i>Esomus danricus</i>), pool barb (<i>Puntius sophore</i>), or mixed species shoals to zebrafish shoals. Our experiments established that zebrafish shoals exhibited antipredator behaviours upon exposure to olfactory and visual cues from demonstrator shoals (in visual contact with a predator) consisting of zebrafish, flying barbs or mixed species consisting of both species. To gain insight into information transfer on the presence of food sources, we conducted two-choice experiments measuring the association time of test zebrafish with demonstrator shoals possessing or lacking information on the presence of food sources. Interestingly, these experiments revealed that while there was no evidence for information transfer from single species demonstrator shoals, mixed species demonstrator shoals did convey information to the observer test zebrafish. Therefore, our experiments reveal that wild zebrafish obtain information on predators and food sources through visual and/or olfactory cues from conspecific, heterospecific or mixed-species shoals, suggesting that information access may be an important driver towards shoaling among fish.</p>