It was discovered that some fireflies are able to adjust their flashing so as to synchronize with the flashing of those around them. They will also respond to artificial flashing. The dynamics of the phase difference between the firefly's frequency and the stimuli's frequency can be expressed with the nonuniform oscillator equation : pdot = q - w - Asin(p), where q is the frequency of the stimulus and w is the frequency of the firefly and A measures the firefly's ability to modify and is >0. Analyzing this equation shows that the firefly can only match the stimulus, or become entrained, for a certain range of entrainment.
Challenges
I didn't understand equation 6 in section 4.5 because I thought the phase difference during entrainment was zero, because the firefly is entrained to flash at the same time. But if it's zero, why do we need a model to predict the phase difference.
Reflections
This sure is a cool biological application of what we're studying. I really want to see one of those videos of fireflies synchronized.
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