This week

Pattern formation is ubiquitous in biological development. Tissue patterns are often formed as organisms grow in size. I will discuss examples of how growth affects the physics of pattern formation. My first example will be the arrangement of chromatophores on the squid mantel, as an instance of disordered packing on a growing surface. I will then present a two-species toy model to explore potential universal behavior in these systems. I will conclude by using similar ideas to understand stripe pattern stability in clownfish mutants.

References:

Ross RJ, Masucci GD, Lin CY, Iglesias TL, Reiter S, Pigolotti S. Hyperdisordered cell packing on a growing surface. Physical Review X. 15(2):021064 (2025).
Ross RJ, Pigolotti S. Coarsening and universality on a growing surface. arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.09172 (2024).
Klann M, Miura S, Lee SH, Vianello SD, Ross R, Watanabe M, Gairin E, Liang Y, Hutto HW, McCluskey BM, Herrera M et al. Cell-cell communication as underlying principle governing color pattern formation in teleost fishes. Nature Communications (2026).