Related papers: Blue mussel shell shape plasticity and natural env…
Plankton is the productive base of aquatic ecosystems and plays a major role in the global control of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, after intensive study, the factors that drive its spatial distribution are still far from being…
The shape of biological shells, such as cell nuclei, membranes, and vesicles, often deviates from a perfect sphere due to an interplay of complex interactions with a myriad of molecular structures. In particular, semiflexible biopolymers…
Galaxies with different morphological characteristics likely have different evolutionary histories, such that understanding the mechanisms that drive morphological change can provide valuable insights into the galaxy evolution process.…
We study the periodic buckling patterns that emerge when elastic shells are subjected to geometric confinement. Residual swelling provides access to range of shapes (saddles, rolled sheets, cylinders, and spherical sections) which vary in…
Changes of external parameters in proximity of critical point can increase thermal fluctuations of tubular lipid membrane (TLM) and result in variation of the membrane shape. The phase transitions in the system are shown to be controlled by…
In biological tissues, it is now well-understood that mechanical cues are a powerful mechanism for pattern regulation. While much work has focused on interactions between cells and external substrates, recent experiments suggest that cell…
The characterization of plasticity, robustness, and evolvability, an important issue in biology, is studied in terms of phenotypic fluctuations. By numerically evolving gene regulatory networks, the proportionality between the phenotypic…
When an amorphous material is strained beyond the point of yielding it enters a state of continual reconfiguration via dissipative, avalanche-like slip events that relieve built-up local stress. However, how the statistics of such events…
Marine shells are designed by nature to ensure mechanical protection from predators and shelter for mollusks living inside them. A large amount of work has been done to study the multiscale mechanical properties of their complex…
Recent experiments suggest that the interplay between cells and the mechanics of their substrate gives rise to a diversity of morphological and migrational behaviors. Here, we develop a Cellular Potts Model of polarizing cells on a…
Coastal ecosystems are increasingly experiencing anthropogenic pressures such as climate heating, CO2 increase, metal and organic pollution, overfishing and resource extraction. Some resulting stressors are more direct like fisheries,…
While a rich variety of self-propelled particle models propose to explain the collective motion of fish and other animals, rigorous statistical comparison between models and data remains a challenge. Plausible models should be flexible…
The deep-water fauna of the Mediterranean is characterized by an absence of distinctive characteristics and by a relative impoverishment. Both are a result of events after the Messinian salinity crisis (Late Miocene). The three main classes…
Both evolution and ecology have long been concerned with the impact of variable environmental conditions on observed levels of genetic diversity within and between species. We model the evolution of a quantitative trait under selection that…
Climate change has been shown to affect fitness-related traits in a wide range of taxa; for instance, warming leads to phenological advancements in many plant and animal species. The influence of climate change on social and secondary…
Minimal energy shapes of closed, elastic shells with twelve pentagonal disclinations introduced in otherwise hexagonally coordinated crystalline lattice are studied. The geometry and the total energy of shells are studied as a function of…
Soluble alpha-amylases play an important role in the catabolism of polysaccharides. In this work, we show that the enzyme can interact with the lipid membrane and further alter its mechanical properties. Vesicle fluctuation spectroscopy is…
Mesoscale convective systems MCSs play a central role in tropical rainfall and are closely linked to extreme precipitation and large scale variability. However, a quantitative understanding of their environmental controls remains…
The growth, lifetime, number density, and size of water droplets in warm atmospheric clouds determine the evolution, lifetime and light transmission properties of those clouds. These small-scale cloud properties, in addition to…
We have examined the correlations between the large-scale environment of galaxies and their physical properties, using a sample of 28,354 nearby galaxies drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and the large-scale tidal field reconstructed…