Abstract
We are interested in deciphering the mechanisms for morphogenesis in the Red Sea scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata with the help of mathematical models. Previous mathematical models for coral morphogenesis assume that skeletal growth is proportional to the amount of locally available energetic resources like diffusible nutrients and photosynthetic products. We introduce a new model which includes factors like dissolved nutrients and photosynthates, but these resources do not serve as building blocks for growth but rather provide some kind of positional information for coral morphogenesis. Depending on this positional information side branches are generated, splittings of branches take place and branch growth direction is determined. The model results are supported by quantitative comparisons with experimental data obtained from young coral colonies.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 70-77 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Journal of Theoretical Biology |
| Volume | 275 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 21 Apr 2011 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was funded by the European project 012547 CORALZOO. We thank Heiko Gerdes (Dresden) for the visualization of the model results. We thank the editor for useful remarks that greatly improved the paper.
Keywords
- Coral morphogenesis
- Mathematical model
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Statistics and Probability
- Modeling and Simulation
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
- General Immunology and Microbiology
- General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
- Applied Mathematics