Possible Buckling Phenomena in Diatom Morphogenesis

Abstract

We take a fresh look at diatoms, and find a reasonable visual match of some valve and girdle contours to various kinds of buckling phenomena, describable as corrugations, pleats and folds, and Bessel functions, such as describe the vibrations of a round musical drum. Buckling of raphes and costae, considered as buckling of columns, may account for some of their features. The matches we find will have to be tested by finite element method, computer simulation, time sequence microscopy, micromanipulation, and direct measurement of the physical (constitutive) properties of the materials from which a diatom constructs itself. The genome may set up boundary conditions that lead to mechanical instabilities and buckling, rather than controlling these diatom patterns in any direct way. This investigation also led us to propose that there is an electric potential in the silicalemma that may account for the generally straight course of growth of costae.