Composite material in the sea urchin Cidaris rugosa : ordered and disordered micrometre-scale bicontinuous geometries

Anna-Lee Jessop; Allan J Millsteed; Jacob J K Kirkensgaard; Jeremy Shaw; Peta L Clode; Gerd E Schröder-Turk

doi:10.1098/rsif.2023.0597

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Composite material in the sea urchin Cidaris rugosa : ordered and disordered micrometre-scale bicontinuous geometries

Journal article

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Composite material in the sea urchin Cidaris rugosa : ordered and disordered micrometre-scale bicontinuous geometries

Anna-Lee Jessop, Allan J Millsteed, Jacob J K Kirkensgaard, Jeremy Shaw, Peta L Clode and Gerd E Schröder-Turk

Journal of the Royal Society interface, Vol.21(212), 20230597

2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2023.0597

PMID: 38471532

Appears in Open Access via Read & Publish Agreements

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Abstract

Animals

Calcium Carbonate - chemistry

Sea Urchins

The sponge-like biomineralized calcite materials found in echinoderm skeletons are of interest in terms of both structure formation and biological function. Despite their crystalline atomic structure, they exhibit curved interfaces that have been related to known triply periodic minimal surfaces. Here, we investigate the endoskeleton of the sea urchin that has long been known to form a microstructure related to the Primitive surface. Using X-ray tomography, we find that the endoskeleton is organized as a composite material consisting of domains of bicontinuous microstructures with different structural properties. We describe, for the first time, the co-occurrence of ordered single Primitive and single Diamond structures and of a disordered structure within a single skeletal plate. We show that these structures can be distinguished by structural properties including solid volume fraction, trabeculae width and, to a lesser extent, interface area and mean curvature. In doing so, we present a robust method that extracts interface areas and curvature integrals from voxelized datasets using the Steiner polynomial for parallel body volumes. We discuss these very large-scale bicontinuous structures in the context of their function, formation and evolution.

Details

Title: Composite material in the sea urchin Cidaris rugosa : ordered and disordered micrometre-scale bicontinuous geometries
Authors/Creators: Anna-Lee Jessop - School of Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry and Physics, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Australia
Allan J Millsteed - Murdoch University
Jacob J K Kirkensgaard - University of Würzburg
Jeremy Shaw - The University of Western Australia
Peta L Clode - The University of Western Australia
Gerd E Schröder-Turk - University of Canberra
Publication Details: Journal of the Royal Society interface, Vol.21(212), 20230597
Publisher: the Royal Society
Identifiers: 991005649566007891
Murdoch Affiliation: School of Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry and Physics
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article

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Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration; International collaboration
Citation topics: 3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology; 3.2 Marine Biology; 3.2.1339 Marine Invertebrate Development
Web Of Science research areas: Multidisciplinary Sciences
ESI research areas: Biology & Biochemistry