Biological action at a distance: Correlated pattern formation in adjacent tessellation domains without communication
Fig 1
Tessellating domains and sub-domain structure in biological systems.
At markedly different length scales, the skin of giraffes and the stained neocortices of rodents display similar arrangements of polygonal domains, many of which appear further divided into sub-structures. A Image of the skin of a giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata), credited to O. Berger, and described by Koch & Meinhardt (1994; [56]) as a Voronoi tessellation. The dark panels overlap with a vascular structure that is important for thermoregulation. B Image of a tangential section of the cytochrome oxidase stained primary somatosensory cortex of an adult laboratory rat (Sprague-Dawley), revealing a pattern of large cortical columns known as ‘barrels’, which have also been described formally as a Voronoi tessellation. C Sub-structures apparent in larger barrel columns have been described in terms of the four categories depicted below, which correspond to the stable patterns generated by a reaction-diffusion model parameterised to amplify modes of increasing spatial frequency. Images in B and C are from Land & Erickson (2005; [57]) and are shown at a common scale. Photograph in A reprinted with permission from Koch A.J. & Meinhardt H., Reviews of Modern Physics, 66, 1481 (1994). Copyright (1994) by the American Physical Society (http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.66.1481).