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Novel Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure in the sunflower: results of a citizen science experiment

This citizen science study evaluates the occurrence of Fibonacci structure in the spirals of sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seedheads. This phenomenon has competing biomathematical explanations, and our core premise is that observation of both Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure is informative for...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Swinton, Jonathan, Ochu, Erinma
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4892450/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27293788
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160091
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author Swinton, Jonathan
Ochu, Erinma
author_facet Swinton, Jonathan
Ochu, Erinma
author_sort Swinton, Jonathan
collection PubMed
description This citizen science study evaluates the occurrence of Fibonacci structure in the spirals of sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seedheads. This phenomenon has competing biomathematical explanations, and our core premise is that observation of both Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure is informative for challenging such models. We collected data on 657 sunflowers. In our most reliable data subset, we evaluated 768 clockwise or anticlockwise parastichy numbers of which 565 were Fibonacci numbers, and a further 67 had Fibonacci structure of a predefined type. We also found more complex Fibonacci structures not previously reported in sunflowers. This is the third, and largest, study in the literature, although the first with explicit and independently checkable inclusion and analysis criteria and fully accessible data. This study systematically reports for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, seedheads without Fibonacci structure. Some of these are approximately Fibonacci, and we found in particular that parastichy numbers equal to one less than a Fibonacci number were present significantly more often than those one more than a Fibonacci number. An unexpected further result of this study was the existence of quasi-regular heads, in which no parastichy number could be definitively assigned.
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spelling pubmed-48924502016-06-10 Novel Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure in the sunflower: results of a citizen science experiment Swinton, Jonathan Ochu, Erinma R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) This citizen science study evaluates the occurrence of Fibonacci structure in the spirals of sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seedheads. This phenomenon has competing biomathematical explanations, and our core premise is that observation of both Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure is informative for challenging such models. We collected data on 657 sunflowers. In our most reliable data subset, we evaluated 768 clockwise or anticlockwise parastichy numbers of which 565 were Fibonacci numbers, and a further 67 had Fibonacci structure of a predefined type. We also found more complex Fibonacci structures not previously reported in sunflowers. This is the third, and largest, study in the literature, although the first with explicit and independently checkable inclusion and analysis criteria and fully accessible data. This study systematically reports for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, seedheads without Fibonacci structure. Some of these are approximately Fibonacci, and we found in particular that parastichy numbers equal to one less than a Fibonacci number were present significantly more often than those one more than a Fibonacci number. An unexpected further result of this study was the existence of quasi-regular heads, in which no parastichy number could be definitively assigned. The Royal Society 2016-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4892450/ /pubmed/27293788 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160091 Text en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © 2016 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Biology (Whole Organism)
Swinton, Jonathan
Ochu, Erinma
Novel Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure in the sunflower: results of a citizen science experiment
title Novel Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure in the sunflower: results of a citizen science experiment
title_full Novel Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure in the sunflower: results of a citizen science experiment
title_fullStr Novel Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure in the sunflower: results of a citizen science experiment
title_full_unstemmed Novel Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure in the sunflower: results of a citizen science experiment
title_short Novel Fibonacci and non-Fibonacci structure in the sunflower: results of a citizen science experiment
title_sort novel fibonacci and non-fibonacci structure in the sunflower: results of a citizen science experiment
topic Biology (Whole Organism)
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4892450/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27293788
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160091
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