Abstract
Using microcomputer image processing, we analyzed the organization of community behavior during the initiation of aggregation in densely populated Dictyostelium amoebae. Just after starvation, cells behaved randomly in both space and time. The first spatial organization was the appearance of transitory regions in which the amoebae oscillated at the same frequency but with different phase. Next, waves began to propagate con-centrically within small regions, but these domains were unstable, appearing and disappearing here and there. As time passed, waves propagated for longer distances, and eventually definite centers appeared. Spectral analysis showed that the center was characteristic in having highly ordered oscillation. Later, amoebae began aggregating at these wave propagation centers. Thus, populations of oscillating amoebae organize community behavior through competitive interaction among local oscillators, the most ordered enslaving the others.
