Growth & Development
36 mechanisms in this category
Age-Based Triggers
Some species use age-based triggers regardless of size. Bamboo flowers on a fixed schedule: every 40, 60, or 120 years depending on species. Nearly al...
Apical Dominance Removal
When terminal bud is removed, auxin production stops. Within days, auxin levels drop below inhibition threshold, dormant buds activate, multiple shoot...
Apical Meristem Growth
Trees grow at the tips. Period. The technical term is "meristem" - specialized tissue at the ends of branches and roots where cell division actively o...
Autotomy
Sacrificing part to save whole. Lizards drop their tails when attacked by predators. The tail continues twitching (distracting predator) while lizard...
Branching Angle Strategy
Branching angle determines growth strategy: Narrow angles (20-40°) indicate strong apical dominance with lateral branches growing nearly vertical, max...
Cancer
A cancer diagnosis is terrifying because you realize your own body is trying to kill you. Not from outside invasion - no virus, no bacteria, no extern...
Cell Differentiation
Here's something remarkable: every cell in your body has the same DNA. The same genetic code. The neurons in your brain, the muscle cells in your hear...
Cell Division
Growth at the cellular level isn't subtle. Cells don't gradually expand like balloons inflating. They grow by splitting in half - a process called mit...
Cold Stratification
Cold stratification is a dormancy mechanism requiring weeks or months near freezing before seeds will germinate. Apple seeds need 60-90 days at 1-5°C....
Contact Inhibition
Put normal cells in a petri dish, and they'll divide until they form a single layer covering the surface. Then they stop. They sense contact with neig...
Coppice Exhaustion
Each time a tree is cut and regrows, it depletes root reserves. Each regeneration cycle is slightly weaker than the last. The first coppice cycle prod...
Coppicing
Coppicing is traditional woodland management where trees are cut to ground level every 7-20 years. The trees don't die - they regrow from the stump. T...
Dormancy
Dormancy is risk management encoded in biochemistry. Seeds have evolved dozens of mechanisms to prevent premature germination: physical barriers (hard...
Epicormic Sprouting
Growth from dormant buds hidden beneath bark. Dormant buds embedded on trunk/branches activate after damage (fire, pruning, defoliation). Shoots visib...
Fire Succession
Forest fire kills above-ground plants but releases nutrients (ash), clears competitors, triggers dormant seed germination. Disturbance eliminates weak...
Fire-Stimulated Germination
Some chaparral seeds require fire to germinate (heat-shock or smoke-chemical triggers). Seeds lie dormant 20-50 years accumulated in soil seed bank. F...
Germination
Germination is the decision to break dormancy - to burn reserves and commit to growth in a specific environment, at a specific time, with specific res...
Growth Plates
Trees grow at the tips. Period. The technical term is "meristem" - specialized tissue at the ends of branches and roots where cell division actively...
Hox Gene Developmental Patterning
Hox genes are a family of transcription factors that control body plan organization in animals with bilateral symmetry. They specify positional identi...
Imbibition
Imbibition is the process of water uptake by seeds. Seeds can lose 90-95% of their water content and enter quiescence - metabolically almost dead, but...
Lignotubers
Underground woody bunkers packed with dormant buds and stored energy at shrub base. Lignotubers sit underground or at soil surface, insulated from fir...
Mitosis
Your body replaces approximately 330 billion cells per day. That's about 3.8 million cells per second. Right now, while you're reading this, millions...
mTOR Pathway
The mTOR pathway is evolution's fundamental choice: grow or maintain, reproduce or survive, live fast or live long. When calories are abundant, mTOR a...
Multiplicative Growth
When growth rates are proportional to current size (rich get richer), and growth rates vary stochastically across individuals, size distributions beco...
Platform Architecture
Platform architecture in products mirrors the biological principle of shared underlying structures supporting diverse phenotypic expressions, much as...
Quiescence
Quiescence is the state where seeds lose 90-95% of their water content and become metabolically almost dead, but not quite. Unlike true dormancy (whic...
Resprouting from Base
Dormant buds at stump base activate after trunk removal. Shoots visible within 1-4 weeks. Energy source is stored carbohydrates in roots accumulated d...
Root Suckering
New shoots emerge from lateral roots, often meters away from parent trunk. Shoots visible within weeks to months. Energy source is root system carbohy...
Scarification
Scarification is the physical weakening of the seed coat to allow water penetration. Many seeds require physical abrasion before germinating: passage...
Seed Bank Regeneration
Seeds dormant in soil germinate after disturbance (fire, flooding, soil disturbance). Germination within weeks, but seedlings take years to reach prev...
Senescence
Pacific salmon grow continuously for 3-5 years in the ocean, then swim upstream to spawn. After spawning, 100% die - not from exhaustion but because p...
Serotinous Cones
Cones sealed with resin that require fire heat (60-70°C) to melt resin and release seeds. Cones stay closed on tree for decades. Fire kills adult tree...
Size-Dependent Maturity
Size-dependent maturity is when reproductive transition is triggered by resource accumulation rather than time passage. Most fish become sexually matu...
Stem Cell Activation
Adult stem cells lie dormant in tissues. Injury signals activate them. They migrate to damage site, differentiate into needed cell types (muscle, skin...
The Grandmother Hypothesis
Human females live decades beyond menopause. This is evolutionarily unusual - most species reproduce until death. Why do humans invest resources in po...
Wound Healing
Tissue damage triggers three-phase response: (1) Inflammation - clot forms, immune cells clear debris, (2) Proliferation - new tissue grows rapidly, (...