This research will improve our understanding of cells and tissues in flowering plants. More specifically, this work will reveal how the structural properties of the interior tissue, or mesophyll, of flower petals vary across species. This is important because different species of plants use the same building blocks to generate radically different structures. The knowledge gained from the experiments and computational models created in this work can aid in the development of new materials that self-assemble and have specific tunable properties and mechanical responses. This work also includes several education and outreach activities. These include mentoring under-represented minority high school and first-generation low-income undergraduate students in summer research, developing a course module on computational analysis of microscopy images of plant tissue, and organizing mini-symposia at scientific meetings that bring together plant biologists and engineers who study the structural and mechanical properties of plant tissue. Because of the shared interests, funding is split between the division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) and the division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS).
Biomimicry is the study of physiological traits in the natural world to inspire the creation of novel materials and designs. While biomimetic materials take advantage of a single biological property, designs rarely focus on the tunability and diversity of biological structures. For example, the angiosperms, or flowering plants, are one of the most dominant and diverse existing terrestrial plant groups on Earth, and their success has largely been attributed to the evolution of flowers as reproductive organs. Flower petals in particular vary widely among the angiosperms, but how these structures develop and differ from species to species is largely unknown. Using high-resolution micro-computed tomography, the studies will show how the structural properties of the interior tissue, or mesophyll, of flower petals vary across species. Computer simulations of mesophyll self-assembly using a novel three-dimensional deformable particle model will also be carried out to determine whether changes in a few key biophysical parameters can generate a broad array of different tissue-level structures. These combined experimental and computational studies represent one of the first investigations into how simple biophysical rules can explain the development and diversity of complex, three-dimensional plant tissue. These results will reveal fundamental design principles for petal mesophyll tissue, which in turn will enable the design of novel, porous materials with tunable mechanical and structural properties.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
