The synchronized flashing of fireflies at night. The spiraling patterns
of an aggregating slime mold. The anastomosing network of army-ant
trails. The coordinated movements of a school of fish. Researchers are
finding in such patterns--phenomena that have fascinated naturalists for
centuries--a fertile new approach to understanding biological systems:
the study of self-organization. This book, a primer on self-organization
in biological systems for students and other enthusiasts, introduces
readers to the basic concepts and tools for studying self-organization
and then examines numerous examples of self-organization in the natural
world.
Self-organization refers to diverse pattern formation processes in the
physical and biological world, from sand grains assembling into rippled
dunes to cells combining to create highly structured tissues to
individual insects working to create sophisticated societies. What these
diverse systems hold in common is the proximate means by which they
acquire order and structure. In self-organizing systems, pattern at the
global level emerges solely from interactions among lower-level
components. Remarkably, even very complex structures result from the
iteration of surprisingly simple behaviors performed by individuals
relying on only local information. This striking conclusion suggests
important lines of inquiry: To what degree is environmental rather than
individual complexity responsible for group complexity? To what extent
have widely differing organisms adopted similar, convergent strategies
of pattern formation? How, specifically, has natural selection
determined the rules governing interactions within biological systems?
Broad in scope, thorough yet accessible, this book is a self-contained
introduction to self-organization and complexity in biology--a field of
study at the forefront of life sciences research.
