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On the biophysics of plant morphogenesis
What sets the size and form of organisms is still, by large, an open question. During this talk, I will aim at a broad audience and illustrate how are addressing this question by using biophysical experiments and models applied to plant morphogenesis. On the one hand, measurements of cell internal pressure support an analogy between plant tissues and liquid foams. On the other hand, models suggest long-range correlations in growing tissues. This prompted us to analyse the spectra of fluctuations in growing tissues, developing a novel approach that is applicable to geometrically disordered materials. Finally, I will briefly present how we are using microfluidic approaches to investigate variability in morphogenesis between individual plants.