Collective synchrony of mating signals modulated by ecological cues and social signals in bioluminescent sea fireflies

Abstract

Individuals often employ simple rules that can emergently synchronize behaviour. Some collective behaviours are intuitively beneficial, but others like mate signalling in leks occur across taxa despite theoretical individual costs. Whether disparate instances of synchronous signalling are similarly organized is unknown, largely due to challenges observing many individuals simultaneously. Recording field collectives and ex situ playback experiments, we describe principles of synchronous bioluminescent signals produced by marine ostracods (Crustacea; Luxorina) that seem behaviorally convergent with terrestrial fireflies, and with whom they last shared a common ancestor over 500 Mya. Like synchronous fireflies, groups of signalling males use visual cues (intensity and duration of light) to decide when to signal. Individual ostracods also modulate their signal based on the distance to nearest neighbours. During peak darkness, luminescent ‘waves’ of synchronous displays emerge and ripple across the sea floor approximately every 60 s, but such periodicity decays within and between nights after the full moon. Our data reveal these bioluminescent aggregations are sensitive to both ecological and social light sources. Because the function of collective signals is difficult to dissect, evolutionary convergence, like in the synchronous visual displays of diverse arthropods, provides natural replicates to understand the generalities that produce emergent group behaviour.