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

合作研究：RoL：FELS：EAGER：确定新兴生物集体行为中长程和短程相互作用的相互作用

• 批准号: 1838331
• 负责人: Corina Tarnita
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1838331&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; RoL; FELS; EAGER

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.

在鱼类学校，植被模式或微生物垫中可以看到，活生物体具有显着的大规模组织和协调。这样的组织如何发生是一个悬而未决的问题。 假设有机体使用较短的距离和更长的距离相互作用（例如物理接触和化学交流）来组织和协调行为。但是，在大多数系统中，很难识别和量化这些相互作用。该项目将揭示反馈如何调节同步，坐标和形成集体的能力，分组如何调整密钥属性（例如大小和组成），以及小组如何控制多个集体之间的大规模模式形成。 在社交变形虫中，已知在短距离和长距离协调行为的相互作用类型。对这些变形虫的研究将使方法的发展能够可视化这些相互作用并在小组形成期间首次量化它们。将检查这些相互作用如何共同协调一个跨单个组的个体并在多组之间进行协调。 研究人员将将这种经验知识纳入一个理论模型中，以做出一般预测。该项目将通过使他们参与实验和建模项目来培训本科生，研究生和博士后研究。它还将通过一门课程来培训生物建模的大学生，该课程将整合该项目的概念。自我组织在整个生物学世界中普遍存在，并了解其自然发生的方式及其产生的新兴模式构成了我们控制此类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/或远程相互作用以及反馈可以驱动自组织，这种相互作用的不同混合会导致不同的系统级别后果。尽管有多产的理论工作，但这些提出的机制的实验证据在很大程度上缺乏，主要是因为很少有系统所需的定量控制和读数水平。 研究人员将解决自组织的问题以及在细胞粘液霉菌（Dictyostelium discoideum）中产生的集体表型。 优化和利用新的实验技术将允许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。 该项目将揭示反馈如何调节同步，坐标和形成集体的能力。 该项目还可以确定有机体如何调整关键群体的属性，例如大小和组成，并控制多个集体之间的大规模模式形成。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的评估来获得支持的。