Deciphering coral biomineralization by in-vivo Bragg diffraction and 3D Bragg ptychography on the forming skeleton of Stylophora pistillata

The aim of this proposal is to follow up on the biomineralization process in the coral Stylophora pistillata (Sp) in vivo, to provide decisive crystalline information regarding the dynamics of the amorphous/crystalline transformation and the mechanism by which the alignment of formed crystallites into a large, high-quality single crystal is achieved. These open questions can only be answered with in vivo studies, which we recently successfully established at ID13 (see Exp. Rep. EV-395), collecting fascinating preliminary data on biomineralization. By performing spatially resolved fluorescence (XRF), Bragg diffraction and 3D Bragg ptychography (3DBP) in vivo, we shall access to Ca distribution, strain, tilts and crystalline coherence maps of a crystallizing Sp skeletons, providing a unique comprehensive picture of the transformation of the initial amorphous phase into a large final single crystal.