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    Fibonacci spirals are common in many living plants but a new study challenges this view. The study examined 407-million-year-old fossils of the extinct clubmoss species Asteroxylon mackiei. It found that the arrangement of the plant's leaves did not follow the Fibonacci sequence and non-Fibonacci spirals were more common. This discovery suggests that Fibonacci spirals evolved separately in different plant groups and were not always present in early land plants, unlike what was previously believed. The findings change our understanding of the evolutionary history of leaf arrangements and Fibonacci spirals in plants.

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    Fibonacci spirals are common in many living plants but a new study challenges this view. The study examined 407-million-year-old fossils of the extinct clubmoss species Asteroxylon mackiei. It found that the arrangement of the plant's leaves did not follow the Fibonacci sequence and non-Fibonacci spirals were more common. This discovery suggests that Fibonacci spirals evolved separately in different plant groups and were not always present in early land plants, unlike what was previously believed. The findings change our understanding of the evolutionary history of leaf arrangements and Fibonacci spirals in plants.

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    Fibonacci spirals are common in many living plants but a new study challenges this view. The study examined 407-million-year-old fossils of the extinct clubmoss species Asteroxylon mackiei. It found that the arrangement of the plant's leaves did not follow the Fibonacci sequence and non-Fibonacci spirals were more common. This discovery suggests that Fibonacci spirals evolved separately in different plant groups and were not always present in early land plants, unlike what was previously believed. The findings change our understanding of the evolutionary history of leaf arrangements and Fibonacci spirals in plants.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    18 views3 pages

    Print Job 11

    Uploaded by

    Anushka singh
    Fibonacci spirals are common in many living plants but a new study challenges this view. The study examined 407-million-year-old fossils of the extinct clubmoss species Asteroxylon mackiei. It found that the arrangement of the plant's leaves did not follow the Fibonacci sequence and non-Fibonacci spirals were more common. This discovery suggests that Fibonacci spirals evolved separately in different plant groups and were not always present in early land plants, unlike what was previously believed. The findings change our understanding of the evolutionary history of leaf arrangements and Fibonacci spirals in plants.

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    The fossil that’s changing what we know about patterns innature

    Fibonacci spirals are so common in plants today that they are


    believed to represent an ancient and highly conserved feature,
    dating back to the earliest stages of plant evolution and
    persisting in their present forms. But a new study, based on 407-
    million-year-old fossils, challenges this
    1 of 3 The same pinecone colour coded to show 8 clockwise and 13 anticlockwise spirals. 8 and 13
    are consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci series. - Photo: Sandy Hetherington

    SANDY HETHERINGTON, HOLLY-ANNE TURNER,

    If your eyes have ever been drawn to the arrangement of leaves on a plant stem,
    the texture of a pineapple or the scales of a pinecone, then you have unknowingly
    witnessed brilliant examples of mathematical patterns in nature.

    What ties all of these botanical features together is their shared characteristic of
    being arranged in spirals that adhere to a numerical sequence called theFibonacci
    sequence. These spirals, referred to as Fibonacci spirals for simplicity, are
    extremely widespread in plants and have fascinated scientists from Leonardo da
    Vinci to Charles Darwin.

    Such is the prevalence of Fibonacci spirals in plants today that they are believed to
    represent anancient and highly conserved feature, dating back to the earliest
    stages of plant evolution and persisting in their present forms.

    However, ournew studychallenges this viewpoint. We examined the spirals in the


    However, ournew studychallenges this viewpoint. We examined the spirals in the
    leaves and reproductive structures of a fossilised plant dating back 407 million
    years. Surprisingly, we discovered that all of the spirals observed in this particular
    species did not follow this same rule. Today, only a very few plants don’t follow a
    Fibonacci pattern.

    What are Fibonacci spirals?

    Spirals occur frequently in nature and can be seen in plant leaves, animal shells
    and even in the double helix of our DNA. In most cases, these spirals relate to the
    Fibonacci sequence – a set of numbers where each is the sum of the two numbers
    that precede it (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on).

    These patterns are particularly widespread in plants and can even be recognised
    with the naked eye. If you pick up a pinecone and look at the base, you can see the
    woody scales form spirals that converge towards the point of attachment with the
    branch.

    At first, you may only spot spirals in one direction. But look closely and you can
    see both clockwise and anticlockwise spirals. Now count the number of clockwise
    and anticlockwise spirals, and in almost every case the number of spirals will be
    integers in the Fibonacci sequence. This particular instance is not an exceptional
    case. In astudythat analysed 6,000 pinecones, Fibonacci spirals were found in 97%
    of the examined cones.Fibonacci spirals are not just found in pine cones. They are
    common in other plant organs such as leaves and flowers.

    If you look at the tip of a leafy shoot, such as that of a monkey puzzle tree, you can
    see the leaves are arranged in spirals that start at the tip and gradually wind their
    way round the stem. Astudyof 12,000 spirals from over 650 plant species found
    that Fibonacci spirals occur in over 90% of cases.Due to their frequency in living
    plant species, it has long been thought that Fibonacci spirals were ancient and
    highly conserved in all plants. We set out to test this hypothesis with an
    investigation of early plant fossils.

    Non-Fibonacci spirals

    We examined the arrangement of leaves and reproductive structures in the first


    group of plants known to have developed leaves, calledclubmosses.

    Specifically, we studied plant fossils of the extinct clubmoss speciesAsteroxylon


    mackiei. The fossils we studied are now housed in museum collections in the UK
    and Germany but were originally collected from theRhynie chert– a fossil site in
    northern Scotland. We took images of thin slices of fossils and then used digital
    reconstruction techniques to visualise the arrangement ofAsteroxylon
    mackiei’sleaves in 3D and quantify the spirals.Based on this analysis, we
    discovered that leaf arrangement was highly variable inAsteroxylon mackiei. In
    discovered that leaf arrangement was highly variable inAsteroxylon mackiei. In
    fact, non-Fibonacci spirals were the most common arrangement. The discovery of
    non-Fibonacci spirals in such an early fossil is surprising as they are very rare in
    living plant species today.

    Distinct evolutionary history

    These findings change our understanding of Fibonacci spirals in land plants. They
    suggest that non-Fibonacci spirals were ancient in clubmosses, overturning the
    view that all leafy plants started out growing leaves that followed the Fibonacci
    pattern.

    Furthermore, it suggests that leaf evolution and Fibonacci spirals in clubmosses


    had an evolutionary history distinct from other groups of living plants today, such
    as ferns, conifers and flowering plants. It suggests that Fibonacci spirals emerged
    separately multiple times throughout plant evolution. The work also adds another
    piece to the puzzle of a major evolutionary question – why are Fibonacci spirals so
    common in plants today?

    This question continues to generate debate among scientists. Various hypotheses


    have been proposed, including tomaximise the amount of lightthat each leaf
    receives or topack seeds e!ciently. But our findings highlight how insights from
    fossils and plants like clubmosses may provide vital clues in finding an answer.

    Sandy Hetherington is a plant evolutionary biologist, the University of Edinburgh.


    Holly-Anne Turner is a PhD candidate in palaeobotany at the University College
    Cork.

    (This article is republished from The Conversation.)

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