University of Cambridge > Talks.cam > Plant Sciences Research Seminars > Under the rainbow : understanding how plants build microscopic structures to produce iridescence

  Browse A-Z

Log in

Cambridge users (raven)details Other usersdetails No account?details

Information on

Subscribing to talksdetails Finding a talkdetails Adding a talkdetails Disseminating talksdetails Help and Documentationdetails

Under the rainbow : understanding how plants build microscopic structures to produce iridescence

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Yoan Coudert.

Beetles and butterflies use minute structures arranged periodically on or just below their surfaces to produce vibrant colours that change with the viewing angle, a phenomenon known as iridescence. The structures responsible for these optical effects have been intensively described but the mechanisms underlying their development remain unknown. In particular, how a living organism can produce a nanopattern with sufficient accuracy that it interferes with light to generate an iridescent signal is a key question.

Flowering plants also produce microscopic structures to colour their fruits and flowers and insect pollinators can use petal iridescence to detect flowers more efficiently. The physical mechanism responsible for this effect is a surface diffraction grating formed by ordered striations of the cuticle on flat petal cells. My project aims to understand how an optically accurate diffraction grating can develop on the surface of a flower petal, by coupling a range of molecular and cell biology tools with optical analysis and behavioural ecology conducted in the Glover lab. As a starting point, I developed a protocol to efficiently transform an iridescent species, Hibiscus trionum. We are now using this new model to determine if mechanical buckling of the cuticle could explain the formation of ordered striations on the petal epidermis.

This talk is part of the Plant Sciences Research Seminars series.

Tell a friend about this talk:

This talk is included in these lists:

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.

Other lists

Cambridge eScience Centre J Meeting the Challenge of Healthy Ageing in the 21st Century The obesity epidemic: Discussing the global health crisis Carving object representation at it’s multi-level joints Gates Cambridge Annual Lecture

Other talks

A polyfold lab report The race to solve the solar metallicity problem with neutrinos and discover dark matter New approaches to old problems: controlling pathogenic protozoan parasites of poultry Physico-chemical biology in practice, 1920s–1930s Ribosome profiling and virus infection The semantics and pragmatics of racial and ethnic language: Towards a comprehensive radical contextualist account Singularities of Hermitian-Yang-Mills connections and the Harder-Narasimhan-Seshadri filtration BP KEYNOTE LECTURE: Importance of C-O Bond Activation for CO2/COUtilization - An Approach to Energy Conversion and Storage Thermodynamics de-mystified? /Thermodynamics without Ansätze? Towards a whole brain model of perceptual learning LARMOR LECTURE - Exoplanets, on the hunt of Universal life Frontiers in paediatric cancer research
 

© 2006-2024 Talks.cam, University of Cambridge. Contact Us | Help and Documentation | Privacy and Publicity