This is the flat, top-down companion to the 3D firefly meadow. Instead of a boid swarm with random flicker, every firefly here is a coupled oscillator, the same model biologists use to explain the synchronous fireflies (Photinus carolinus) of the Great Smoky Mountains: each insect keeps its own internal flash clock and nudges that clock toward whatever its nearby neighbors are doing.
- Coupling strength K — how strongly a firefly's clock is pulled toward its neighbors' phase. At K = 0 every insect flashes on its own independent rhythm; push K high enough and the whole meadow locks into one shared pulse.
- Frequency spread — how much each firefly's natural flash frequency differs from the average. A wide spread makes synchrony harder to reach and easier to break; a narrow spread makes the population lock almost immediately.
- Interaction range — how far a firefly can see its neighbors' flashes. A short range only lets local clusters sync with each other, producing traveling waves of light; a long range lets the whole meadow entrain as one.
- Sync level — the Kuramoto order parameter r, the length of the average phase vector across the whole population (0% = phases scattered randomly, 100% = every firefly flashing in the same instant).