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.)