Sarfati Raphael, Joshi Kunaal, Martin Owen, Hayes Julie C, Iyer-Biswas Srividya, Peleg Orit
BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, United States.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University West Lafayette, West Lafayette, United States.
Elife. 2023 Mar 13;12. doi: 10.7554/eLife.78908.
In isolation from their peers, Photinus carolinus fireflies flash with no intrinsic period between successive bursts. Yet, when congregating into large mating swarms, these fireflies transition into predictability, synchronizing with their neighbors with a rhythmic periodicity. Here we propose a mechanism for emergence of synchrony and periodicity, and formulate the principle in a mathematical framework. Remarkably, with no fitting parameters, analytic predictions from this simple principle and framework agree strikingly well with data. Next, we add further sophistication to the framework using a computational approach featuring groups of random oscillators via integrate-and-fire interactions controlled by a tunable parameter. This agent-based framework of P. carolinus fireflies interacting in swarms of increasing density also shows quantitatively similar phenomenology and reduces to the analytic framework in the appropriate limit of the tunable coupling strength. We discuss our findings and note that the resulting dynamics follow the style of a decentralized follow-the-leader synchronization, where any of the randomly flashing individuals may take the role of the leader of any subsequent synchronized flash burst.
在与同伴隔离的情况下，卡罗莱纳熠萤在连续闪光之间没有内在周期地闪烁。然而，当聚集形成大型交配群时，这些萤火虫会转变为可预测状态，与邻居同步，呈现出有节奏的周期性。在此，我们提出一种同步和周期性出现的机制，并在数学框架中阐述该原理。值得注意的是，无需拟合参数，这个简单原理和框架的解析预测与数据惊人地吻合。接下来，我们使用一种计算方法对框架进行进一步完善，该方法通过由可调参数控制的积分发放相互作用，以随机振荡器组为特征。这种基于代理的卡罗莱纳熠萤在密度不断增加的群体中相互作用的框架，也呈现出定量相似的现象学特征，并在可调耦合强度的适当极限下简化为解析框架。我们讨论了我们的发现，并指出由此产生的动力学遵循分散式跟随领导者同步的模式，其中任何随机闪烁的个体都可能在随后的同步闪光爆发中充当领导者的角色。
