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Patterns in Nature
Patterns in nature are visible regular forms found in the natural
world. The patterns can sometimes be modeled mathematically
and they include symmetries, trees, spirals, meanders, waves,
foams, tessellations, cracks and stripes.

Mathematics, physics and chemistry can explain patterns in NUTRITION

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nature at different levels. Patterns in living things express the
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BY
underlying biological processes. Studies of pattern formation ECSTEP –
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make use of computer models to simulate a wide range of
patterns.
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In 1202, Leonardo Fibonacci introduced the Fibonacci 

number sequence. It turns out that simple equations involving
the Fibonacci numbers can describe most of the complex spiral 
growth patterns found in nature.

The Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau (1801–1883) formulated

the mathematical problem of the existence of a minimal surface
with a given boundary, which is now named after him. He SUDOKU
studied soap films intensively and formulated Plateau’s laws, PROGRAM
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The German psychologist Adolf Zeising (1810–1876) claimed
that the golden ratio was expressed in the arrangement of
plant parts, in the skeletons of animals and the branching
patterns of their veins and nerves, as well as in the geometry of
crystals.

Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) painted beautiful illustrations of

marine organisms, in particular Radiolaria, emphasizing their META-
symmetry to support his faux-Darwinian theories of evolution. ANALYSIS
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The American photographer Wilson Bentley (1865–1931) took

the first micrograph of a snowflake in 1885.

D’Arcy Thompson pioneered the study of growth and form in

his 1917 book.

In 1952, Alan Turing (1912–1954), better known for his work

on computing and codebreaking, wrote The Chemical Basis of MODERN
Morphogenesis, an analysis of the mechanisms that would be GRAPHICA
ART ON
needed to create patterns in living organisms, in the process ECSTEP
called morphogenesis. He predicted oscillating chemical
reactions, in particular the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction.
These activator-inhibitor mechanisms can, Turing suggested,
generate patterns of stripes and spots in animals, and contribute
to the spiral patterns seen in plant phyllotaxis.

In 1968, the Hungarian theoretical biologist Aristid

Lindenmayer (1925–1989) developed the L-system, a formal
grammar which can be used to model plant growth patterns in
the style of fractals. L-systems have an alphabet of symbols that
can be combined using production rules to build larger strings of
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symbols, and a mechanism for translating the generated strings 
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into geometric structures. In 1975, after centuries of slow
development of the mathematics of patterns by Gottfried 
Leibniz, Georg Cantor, Helge von Koch (the Koch
snowflake), Wacław Sierpiński and others, Benoît 
Mandelbrot wrote a famous paper, How Long Is the Coast of
Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension,
crystallizing mathematical thought into the concept of the
fractal and the Mandelbrot set.

Causes
Living things like orchids, hummingbirds, and the peacock’s tail
have abstract designs with a beauty of form, pattern and color
that artists struggle to match. The beauty that people perceive in
nature has causes at different levels, notably in the mathematics
that governs what patterns can physically form, and among
living things in the effects of natural selection, that govern how
patterns evolve.

Mathematics seeks to discover and explain abstract patterns or

regularities of all kinds. Visual patterns in nature find
explanations in chaos theory, fractals, logarithmic spirals,

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topology and other mathematical patterns. For example, L-

systems form convincing models of different patterns of tree
growth.

The laws of physics apply the abstractions of mathematics to the

real world, often as if it were perfect. For example, a crystal is
perfect when it has no structural defects such as dislocations and
is fully symmetric. Exact mathematical perfection can only
approximate real objects. Visible patterns in nature are governed
by physical laws; for example, meanders can be explained using
fluid dynamics.

In biology, natural selection can cause the development of

patterns in living things for several reasons, including
camouflage, sexual selection, and different kinds of signalling,
including mimicry and cleaning symbiosis. In plants, the shapes,
colors, and patterns of insect-pollinated flowers like the lily have
evolved to attract insects such as bees. Radial patterns of colors
and stripes, some visible only in ultraviolet light serve as nectar
guides that can be seen at a distance. 
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TYPES OF PATTERN 
Symmetry
Symmetry is pervasive in living things. Animals mainly have
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bilateral or mirror symmetry, as do the leaves of plants and
some flowers such as orchids. Animals that move in one
direction necessarily have upper and lower sides, head and tail
ends, and therefore a left and a right. The head becomes
specialized with a mouth and sense organs (cephalization), and
the body becomes bilaterally symmetric (though internal organs
need not be).

Plants often have radial or rotational symmetry, as do many

flowers and some groups of animals such as sea anemones.

Rotational symmetry is also found at different scales among non-

living things including the crown-shaped splash pattern formed
when a drop falls into a pond, and both the spheroidal shape and
rings of a planet like Saturn.

Radial symmetry suits organisms like sea anemones whose

adults do not move: food and threats may arrive from any

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direction.

Fivefold symmetry is found in the echinoderms, the group that

includes starfish, sea urchins, and sea lilies. The reason for the
fivefold (penta-radiate) symmetry of the echinoderms is
puzzling. Early echinoderms were bilaterally symmetrical, as
their larvae still are. Sumrall and Wray argue that the loss of the
old symmetry had both developmental and ecological causes.

Among non-living things, snowflakes have striking six-fold

symmetry: each flake’s structure forming a record of the
varying conditions during its crystallization, with nearly the same
pattern of growth on each of its six arms.

Crystals in general have a variety of symmetries and crystal

habits; they can be cubic or octahedral, but true crystals cannot
have fivefold symmetry (unlike quasicrystals).

Mirror symmetry

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Threefold Symmetry 

Fourfold Symmetry

Fivefold Symmetry

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Sixfold Symmetry

Rotational symmetry

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Trees, fractals
Fractals are infinitely self-similar, iterated mathematical
constructs having fractal dimension. Infinite iteration is not
possible in nature so all ‘fractal’ patterns are only approximate.

For example, the leaves of ferns and umbellifers (Apiaceae) are

only self-similar (pinnate) to 2, 3 or 4 levels.

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Fern-like growth patterns occur in plants and in animals

including bryozoa, corals, hydrozoa like the air fern, Sertularia
argentea, and in non-living things, notably electrical discharges.

Lindenmayer system fractals can model different patterns of tree

growth by varying a small number of parameters including
branching angle, distance between nodes or branch points
(internode length), and number of branches per branch point.

Fractal-like patterns occur widely in nature, in phenomena as

diverse as clouds, river networks, geologic fault lines,
mountains, coastlines, animal coloration, snow flakes, crystals,
blood vessel branching, and ocean waves.

Leaf of Cow Parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris, is 2- or 3-pinnate, not

infinite

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Spirals
Spirals are common in plants and in some animals, notably
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molluscs.

For example, in the nautilus, a cephalopod mollusc, each

chamber of its shell is an approximate copy of the next one,
scaled by a constant factor and arranged in a logarithmic spiral.
Given a modern understanding of fractals, a growth spiral can be
seen as a special case of self-similarity.

Plant spirals can be seen in phyllotaxis, the arrangement of

leaves on a stem, and in the arrangement (parastichy) of other
parts as in composite flower heads and seed heads like the
sunflower or fruit structures like the pineapple and snake fruit,
as well as in the pattern of scales in pine cones, where multiple
spirals run both clockwise and anticlockwise. These
arrangements have explanations at different levels –
mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology – each individually
correct, but all necessary together.

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Phyllotaxis spirals can be generated mathematically from

Fibonacci ratios: the Fibonacci sequence runs 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,
13… (each subsequent number being the sum of the two
preceding ones). For example, when leaves alternate up a stem,
one rotation of the spiral touches two leaves, so the pattern or
ratio is 1/2. In hazel the ratio is 1/3; in apricot it is 2/5; in pear
it is 3/8; in almond it is 5/13.

In disc phyllotaxis as in the sunflower and daisy, the florets are

arranged in Fermat’s spiral with Fibonacci numbering, at least
when the flowerhead is mature so all the elements are the same
size.

Fibonacci ratios approximate the golden angle, 137.508°, which

governs the curvature of Fermat’s spiral.

From the point of view of physics, spirals are lowest-energy

configurations which emerge spontaneously through self-
organizing processes in dynamic systems. From the point of view
of chemistry, a spiral can be generated by a reaction-diffusion
process, involving both activation and inhibition.
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Phyllotaxis is controlled by proteins that manipulate the 
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concentration of the plant hormone auxin, which activates
meristem growth, alongside other mechanisms to control the
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relative angle of buds around the stem.
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From a biological perspective, arranging leaves as far apart as
possible in any given space is favoured by natural selection as it
maximises access to resources, especially sunlight for
photosynthesis.

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Chaos, flow, meanders

In mathematics, a dynamical system is chaotic if it is (highly)
sensitive to initial conditions (the so-called “butterfly effect”),
which requires the mathematical properties of topological mixing
and dense periodic orbits.

Alongside fractals, chaos theory ranks as an essentially universal

influence on patterns in nature. There is a relationship between
chaos and fractals—the strange attractors in chaotic systems
have a fractal dimension. Some cellular automata, simple sets of
mathematical rules that generate patterns, have chaotic
behaviour, notably Stephen Wolfram’s Rule 30.

Vortex streets are zigzagging patterns of whirling vortices

created by the unsteady separation of flow of a fluid, most often
air or water, over obstructing objects. Smooth (laminar) flow
starts to break up when the size of the obstruction or the
velocity of the flow become large enough compared to the
viscosity of the fluid.
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Meanders are sinuous bends in rivers or other channels, which
form as a fluid, most often water, flows around bends. As soon 
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as the path is slightly curved, the size and curvature of each loop
increases as helical flow drags material like sand and gravel
across the river to the inside of the bend. The outside of the loop
is left clean and unprotected, so erosion accelerates, further
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increasing the meandering in a powerful positive feedback loop.

Waves, dunes
Waves are disturbances that carry energy as they move.
Mechanical waves propagate through a medium – air or water,
making it oscillate as they pass by.

Wind waves are sea surface waves that create the characteristic
chaotic pattern of any large body of water, though their
statistical behaviour can be predicted with wind wave models.

As waves in water or wind pass over sand, they create patterns

of ripples. When winds blow over large bodies of sand, they
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create dunes, sometimes in extensive dune fields as in the

Taklamakan desert.

Dunes may form a range of patterns including crescents, very

long straight lines, stars, domes, parabolas, and longitudinal or
Seif (‘sword’) shapes.

Barchans or crescent dunes are produced by wind acting on

desert sand; the two horns of the crescent and the slip face
point downwind.

Sand blows over the upwind face, which stands at about 15

degrees from the horizontal, and falls on to the slip face, where
it accumulates up to the angle of repose of the sand, which is
about 35 degrees.

When the slip face exceeds the angle of repose, the sand
avalanches, which is a nonlinear behaviour: the addition of many
small amounts of sand causes nothing much to happen, but then
the addition of a further small amount suddenly causes a large
amount to avalanche. 
Apart from this nonlinearity, barchans behave rather like solitary 
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waves.
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Bubbles, foam
A soap bubble forms a sphere, a surface with minimal area —
the smallest possible surface area for the volume enclosed. Two
bubbles together form a more complex shape: the outer surfaces
of both bubbles are spherical; these surfaces are joined by a
third spherical surface as the smaller bubble bulges slightly into
the larger one.

A foam is a mass of bubbles; foams of different materials occur

in nature. Foams composed of soap films obey Plateau’s laws,
which require three soap films to meet at each edge at 120° and
four soap edges to meet at each vertex at the tetrahedral angle
of about 109.5°.

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Plateau’s laws further require films to be smooth and continuous,

and to have a constant average curvature at every point. For
example, a film may remain nearly flat on average by being
curved up in one direction (say, left to right) while being curved
downwards in another direction (say, front to back).

Structures with minimal surfaces can be used as tents. Lord

Kelvin identified the problem of the most efficient way to pack
cells of equal volume as a foam in 1887; his solution uses just
one solid, the bitruncated cubic honeycomb with very slightly
curved faces to meet Plateau’s laws.

No better solution was found until 1993 when Denis Weaire and
Robert Phelan proposed the Weaire–Phelan structure; the Beijing
National Aquatics Center adapted the structure for their outer
wall in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

At the scale of living cells, foam patterns are common;

radiolarians, sponge spicules, silicoflagellate exoskeletons and
the calcite skeleton of a sea urchin, Cidaris rugosa, all resemble
mineral casts of Plateau foam boundaries. The skeleton of the
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Radiolarian, Aulonia hexagona, a beautiful marine form drawn by 
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Haeckel, looks as if it is a sphere composed wholly of hexagons,
but this is mathematically impossible. 
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The Euler characteristic states that for any convex polyhedron,

the number of faces plus the number of vertices (corners) equals
the number of edges plus two. A result of this formula is that
any closed polyhedron of hexagons has to include exactly 12
pentagons, like a soccer ball, Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome,
or fullerene molecule.

This can be visualised by noting that a mesh of hexagons is flat

like a sheet of chicken wire, but each pentagon that is added
forces the mesh to bend (there are fewer corners, so the mesh is
pulled in).

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Tessellations
Tessellations are patterns formed by repeating tiles all over a flat
surface. There are 17 wallpaper groups of tilings. While common
in art and design, exactly repeating tilings are less easy to find in
living things.

The cells in the paper nests of social wasps, and the wax cells in
honeycomb built by honey bees are well-known examples.

Among animals, bony fish, reptiles or the pangolin, or fruits like

the Salak are protected by overlapping scales or osteoderms,
these form more-or-less exactly repeating units, though often
the scales in fact vary continuously in size.

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Among flowers, the Snake’s Head Fritillary, Fritillaria meleagris,
have a tessellated chequerboard pattern on their petals.

The structures of minerals provide good examples of regularly 

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repeating three-dimensional arrays.

Despite the hundreds of thousands of known minerals, there are


rather few possible types of arrangement of atoms in a crystal, 
defined by crystal structure, crystal system, and point group; for
example, there are exactly 14 Bravais lattices for the 7 lattice
systems in three-dimensional space.

Cracks
Cracks are linear openings that form in materials to relieve
stress.

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When an elastic material stretches or shrinks uniformly, it

eventually reaches its breaking strength and then fails suddenly
in all directions, creating cracks with 120 degree joints, so three
cracks meet at a node.

Conversely, when an inelastic material fails, straight cracks form

to relieve the stress. Further stress in the same direction would
then simply open the existing cracks; stress at right angles can
create new cracks, at 90 degrees to the old ones.

Thus the pattern of cracks indicates whether the material is

elastic or not. In a tough fibrous material like oak tree bark,
cracks form to relieve stress as usual, but they do not grow long
as their growth is interrupted by bundles of strong elastic fibres.

Since each species of tree has its own structure at the levels of
cell and of molecules, each has its own pattern of splitting in its
bark.

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Spots, stripes
Leopards and ladybirds are spotted; angelfish and zebras are
striped.

These patterns have an evolutionary explanation: they have

functions which increase the chances that the offspring of the
patterned animal will survive to reproduce.

One function of animal patterns is camouflage; for instance, a

leopard that is harder to see catches more prey.

Another function is signalling — for instance, a ladybird is less

likely to be attacked by predatory birds that hunt by sight, if it
has bold warning colours, and is also distastefully bitter or
poisonous, or mimics other distasteful insects.

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A young bird may see a warning patterned insect like a ladybird

and try to eat it, but it will only do this once; very soon it will
spit out the bitter insect; the other ladybirds in the area will
remain unmolested.

The young leopards and ladybirds, inheriting genes that

somehow create spottedness, survive. But while these
evolutionary and functional arguments explain why these
animals need their patterns, they do not explain how the
patterns are formed.

Pattern formation 
Alan Turing, and later the mathematical biologist James Murray, 
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described a mechanism that spontaneously creates spotted or
striped patterns: a reaction-diffusion system. 
The cells of a young organism have genes that can be switched 
on by a chemical signal, a morphogen, resulting in the growth of
a certain type of structure, say a darkly pigmented patch of skin.

If the morphogen is present everywhere, the result is an even

pigmentation, as in a black leopard. But if it is unevenly
distributed, spots or stripes can result.

Turing suggested that there could be feedback control of the

production of the morphogen itself. This could cause continuous
fluctuations in the amount of morphogen as it diffused around
the body.

A second mechanism is needed to create standing wave patterns

(to result in spots or stripes): an inhibitor chemical that switches
off production of the morphogen, and that itself diffuses through
the body more quickly than the morphogen, resulting in an
activator-inhibitor scheme.

The Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction is a non-biological example

of this kind of scheme, a chemical oscillator.
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Later research has managed to create convincing models of

patterns as diverse as zebra stripes, giraffe blotches, jaguar
spots (medium-dark patches surrounded by dark broken rings)
and ladybird shell patterns (different geometrical layouts of
spots and stripes, see illustrations).

Richard Prum’s activation-inhibition models, developed from

Turing’s work, use six variables to account for the observed
range of nine basic within-feather pigmentation patterns, from
the simplest, a central pigment patch, via concentric patches,
bars, chevrons, eye spot, pair of central spots, rows of paired
spots and an array of dots.

More elaborate models simulate complex feather patterns in the

Guinea fowl, Numida meleagris, in which the individual feathers
feature transitions from bars at the base to an array of dots at
the far (distal) end. These require an oscillation created by two
inhibiting signals, with interactions in both space and time.

Patterns can form for other reasons in the vegetated landscape

of tiger bush and fir waves. Tiger bush stripes occur on arid
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slopes where plant growth is limited by rainfall. Each roughly 
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horizontal stripe of vegetation effectively collects the rainwater
from the bare zone immediately above it. 
Fir waves occur in forests on mountain slopes after wind
disturbance, during regeneration. When trees fall, the trees that
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they had sheltered become exposed and are in turn more likely
to be damaged, so gaps tend to expand downwind.

Meanwhile, on the windward side, young trees grow, protected

by the wind shadow of the remaining tall trees.

Natural patterns are sometimes formed by animals, as in the

Mima mounds of the Northwestern United States and some other
areas, which appear to be created over many years by the
burrowing activities of pocket gophers.

In permafrost soils with an active upper layer subject to annual

freeze and thaw, patterned ground can form, creating circles,
nets, ice wedge polygons, steps, and stripes.

Thermal contraction causes shrinkage cracks to form; in a thaw,

water fills the cracks, expanding to form ice when next frozen,
and widening the cracks into wedges. These cracks may join up
to form polygons and other shapes.

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