[ad_1]
Scientists have identified a new growth rule that shapes the shape and development of sharp or sharp biological structures in animals and plants, such as teeth, horns, claws, beaks and thorns.
Describing the newly found model as a hitherto unknown law of nature, the researchers call their discovery the “power cascade” – a mathematical power law found throughout nature, determining the growth and evolution of a family. of shapes called power cones.
“The diversity of animals, and even plants, that follow this rule is astounding,” says evolutionary biologist Alistair Evans of Monash University in Australia.
“We were quite shocked to have found it almost everywhere we have looked across the realms of life – in living animals, and those that have been extinct for millions of years.”
Most of Evans’ work focuses on the morphological evolution and functioning of their body parts. Sometimes this concentration is formed on the remarkable characteristics of individual creatures; at other times, a similar pattern can be discerned among many organisms.
Hundreds of years ago another scientist had the same concerns. Sir Christopher Wren, the famous English architect and polymath, proposed that the shapes of snail shells be determined by the mathematics of logarithmic spirals, where one side of a structure grows faster than the other.
Centuries later, Evans had a similar realization, but ran into a new rule of growth beyond Wren’s thought – based on a new shape, the Power Cone, which is generated when the radial power growth rate is different from length power growth rate.
The power cascade generates a family of shapes that we call ‘power cones’, which vary from a straight cone to a blunt tip. pic.twitter.com/cVYdjtcQWL
– Alistair Evans (@DrTeethAl) March 30, 2021
“For many years I researched a pattern of tooth growth,” Evans explains in The Conversation. “By examining hundreds of teeth and measuring how they widen as they lengthen, my team and I identified a simple mathematical formula that underlies the shape of the teeth.”
This formula, the cascade of power, is not only seen in the form of natural teeth, horns, fangs and pricks; The power cascade model can also simulate the growth of these structures, the researchers say.
The new finding means that we may be able to gauge the age of the animals by simply knowing the shape of their teeth, as reconstructions of the shape could indicate how long it takes to grow.
Another application could be to anticipate future evolutionary processes, the team believes.
“These shapes can be taken as the default family of shapes for pointed structures, meaning that they are more likely to evolve independently multiple times and will be a likely source of homoplasia in evolution,” the researchers write. in their study.
“Due to the enormous breadth of structures and taxa in which this model is found, it appears that the energy cascade is a fundamental model of growth in a myriad of organisms.”
The results are reported in BMC Biology.
[ad_2]
Source link