A Fourier Analysis Tool for Biological Nano-optics

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This project will develop and implement a new analytical tool for the investigation of the nano-optic functional morphology of color-producing and transparent biological arrays. The method uses 2D and 3D discrete Fourier analysis of 2D and 3D electron microscope images to describe the nanostructural periodicity of biological arrays, to predict the hue and shape of their reflectance spectra, and to test the hypothesis that these structures produce colors or transparency by coherent scattering (i.e. interference). The project will further expand the method and apply it in demonstration analyses of nano-optic arrays from vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and viral aggregations that vary in spatial organization, composition, and optical properties. The accuracy of the physical approximations required by the model will be tested by comparison to explicit solutions using the finite-difference time-domain method. The proposed tools will unify current methods of optical analysis of biological nanostructures, permitting functional analysis of evolutionary transitions among nanostructural classes for the first time. The proposed tool will have broad implications for the study of the function of nano-optic biological arrays in communication, mate choice, sensory biology, crypsis, and other fields nanostructural biology.