Collaborative Research: RoL: FELS: EAGER: Determining the Interplay of Long- and Short-Range Interactions in Emergent Biological Collective Behavior

生物体具有显著的大规模组织和协调能力，如鱼群、植被模式或微生物垫子。这样的组织是如何发生的是一个悬而未决的问题。假设生物体使用较短距离和较长距离的混合作用，如物理接触和化学交流，来组织和协调行为。然而，在大多数系统中，很难识别和量化这些相互作用。这个项目将揭示反馈如何调整同步、协调和形成集体的能力，小组如何调整关键属性，如大小和组成，以及小组如何控制跨多个集体的更大规模的模式形成。在社会变形虫中，协调短距离和长距离行为的互动类型是已知的。对这些变形虫的研究将使人们能够开发出可视化这些相互作用的方法，并首次在群体形成期间量化它们。这些互动如何协同工作以协调单个群体中的个人以及多个群体之间的协调将被研究。研究人员将把这些经验知识融入到一个理论模型中，以做出一般性的预测。这个项目将通过让本科生、研究生和博士后参与实验和建模项目来培养他们的研究能力。它还将通过一门整合这个项目的概念的课程来培训本科生生物建模。自组织在生物世界中普遍存在，了解它是如何自然发生的，以及它产生的新模式是我们控制这种过程的能力的第一步。理论工作提出，这些相互作用之间的短期和/或长期相互作用和反馈可以推动自组织，这种相互作用的不同混合导致不同的系统级后果。尽管有大量的理论工作，但这些拟议的机制在很大程度上缺乏实验证据，主要是因为我们几乎没有系统具备所需的定量控制和读数水平。研究人员将解决自组织和由此产生的细胞黏液霉菌盘基网柄菌的集体表型问题。优化和开发新的实验技术将能够量化短期和远程相互作用的动力学。将实验技术与理论框架相结合，将有助于确定它们之间的相互作用如何导致集体行为。这个项目将揭示反馈如何调节同步、协调和形成集体的能力。该项目还可能决定生物体如何调整关键的群体属性，如大小和组成，并控制跨多个群体的更大规模的模式形成。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Living organisms are capable of remarkable large-scale organization and coordination, as seen in fish schools, vegetation patterns, or microbial mats. How such organization occurs is an open question. It is hypothesized that organisms use a mix of shorter-distance and longer-distance interactions, such as physical contact and chemical communication, to organize and coordinate behavior. However, in most systems it is hard to identify and quantify these interactions. This project will reveal how feedback can modulate the ability to synchronize, coordinate, and form collectives, how groups tune key properties such as size and composition, and how groups control larger-scale pattern formation across multiple collectives. In the social amoeba, the types of interactions that coordinate behavior at both short and long distances are known. Studies of these amoeba will allow the development of methods to visualize these interactions and quantify them for the first time, during group formation. How these interactions work together to coordinate individuals across a single group and coordinate between multiple groups will be examined. The researchers will incorporate this empirical knowledge into a theoretical model to make general predictions. This project will train undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs in research by involving them in the experimental and modeling projects. It will also train undergraduates in biological modeling via a course that will integrate concepts from this project.Self-organization is pervasive throughout the biological world and understanding how it naturally occurs and the emergent patterns it produces constitutes the first step towards our ability to control such processes. Theoretical work has proposed that short- and/or long-range interactions and feedback between these interactions could drive self-organization, with different mixes of such interactions leading to different system-level consequences. Despite prolific theoretical work, experimental evidence for these proposed mechanisms has largely been lacking, primarily because there are few systems where we have the level of quantitative control and readout required. The researchers will address questions of self-organization and the resulting collective phenotypes in the cellular slime mold, Dictyostelium discoideum. Optimizing and exploiting new experimental techniques will permit quantification of the dynamics of short and long-range interactions. Combining the experimental techniques with a theoretical framework will help establish how the interplay between them leads to collective behaviors. This project will reveal how feedback can modulate the ability to synchronize, coordinate, and form collectives. The project may also determine how organisms tune key group properties such as size and composition, and control larger-scale pattern formation across multiple collectives.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.