Pressure and Light Multi-Physics Fields Comodulate the Multi-Length Scales of Chemical Wave Propagation in Diffusion-Fed Gels

During plant growth, the combined effects of multi-physics
fields
such as light, temperature, and material concentration create a complex
multi-length scales phenomenon. However, the mechanism of multi-physical
field interactions on biological multi-length scales has not been
thoroughly investigated. In this paper, an open diffusion-fed system
is constructed by coupling gels with a Belousov–Zhabotinsky
(BZ) chemical reaction system. The multi-length scales propagation
of chemical waves in the gel system under the combined effect of multi-physical
fields such as light (I) and pressure (ΔP) is investigated. It is found that when 85 Pa ≤
ΔP ≤ 100 Pa or 200 μW·cm–2 ≤ I ≤ 300 μW·cm–2, the complexity of the multi-length scales periodic
structure of chemical waves shows a nonlinear change with increasing
light intensity or pressure. Beyond this range, the complexity of
the chemical wave multi-length scales periodic structure decreases
linearly on enhancing the light intensity or increasing the pressure.