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Undergraduate Student Seminar
Tuesday 11 November 2008 3:30 pm in LeConte 412 |
Modeling Plant Phyllotaxis and Primordia Growth
This talk will focus on the appearance of spirals with frequencies related to the Fibonacci sequence in plants. The number of these spirals, a plants phyllotaxis, are a means for categorizing plants. Due to the fractal nature of these spirals, one way to study and count these spirals is to look at growth of plant primordia. Classical models for regular primordia growth using dynamical systems and bifurcation theory will be discussed. Primarily, more recent work on modeling irregular primordia growth including computer simulation of growth will be discussed. Last of all, since this is ongoing research, I will mention current efforts and expected results.
This work was done under the guidance of Prof. Pau Atela of Smith College as part of a
National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates at Mount Holyoke College.