Morphogenesis of anisotropic biogenic crystals driven by elastic strains

Living organisms form a variety of mineralized architectures with exquisite structural control having the ability to control the crystallinity and polymorphism of the mineral building blocks. Some species possess the unique capacity to induce anisotropic growth of mineral single-crystals and to control their final morphology. This is exemplified in the case of calcite, which is expected to grow as a perfect rhombohedral crystal having identical symmetry-related {104} facets, yet some species of unicellular algae, termed coccolithophores, are able to break the thermodynamically induced symmetry and morph calcite into the most intricate shapes. We aim to test the hypothesis that organisms employ residual elastic strains to direct the growth of biogenic singe-crystalline entities. Bragg-CDI experiments will be employed to map, localize and identify lattice distortions in two coccolithophore species, thus establishing a mechanism for morphogenetic control of biogenic single-crystals.