Abstract
Self-organized mechanisms are frequently encountered in nature and known to achieve flexible, adaptive control and decision-making. Noise plays a crucial role in such systems: It can enable a self-organized system to reliably adapt to short-term changes in the environment while maintaining a generally stable behavior. This is fundamental in biological systems because they must strike a delicate balance between stable and flexible behavior. In the present paper we analyse the role of noise in the decision-making of the true slime mold Physarum polycephalum, an important model species for the investigation of computational abilities in simple organisms. We propose a simple biological experiment to investigate the reaction of P. polycephalum to time-variant risk factors and present a stochastic extension of an established mathematical model for P. polycephalum to analyze this experiment. It predicts that—due to the mechanism of stochastic resonance—noise can enable P. polycephalum to correctly assess time-variant risk factors, while the corresponding noise-free system fails to do so. Beyond the study of P. polycephalum we demonstrate that the influence of noise on self-organized decision-making is not tied to a specific organism. Rather it is a general property of the underlying process dynamics, which appears to be universal across a wide range of systems. Our study thus provides further evidence that stochastic resonance is a fundamental component of the decision-making in self-organized macroscopic and microscopic groups and organisms.
Highlights
Self-organization enables even simple organisms to solve surprisingly complex tasks, optimization tasks essential for survival [1]
In the present paper we investigate the assessment of time-variant risk for the true slime mold P. polycephalum
We show that noise can enable P. polycephalum to correctly assess time-variant risk factors in dynamic environments and, as a consequence, to make near-optimal foraging choices
Summary
Self-organization enables even simple organisms to solve surprisingly complex tasks, optimization tasks essential for survival [1]. The self-organized behavior of such organisms has mostly been investigated in unchanging, static environments. While this seems a natural starting point for such. Noise-induced decision making in Physarum polycephalum investigations, dynamic settings are much more relevant to the behavior of organisms in the real world, where change is ubiquitous. This is why recently the focus of research has been shifting towards dynamic environments where the properties of the environment change over time. The question addressed is “can species x efficiently adapt its behavioral patterns to the environmental changes?”
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
