Jacques Dumais

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at Adolfo Ibáñez University

Background and Aims Nolana mollis is a dominant plant species in the hyperarid Atacama Desert. A previous hypothesis states that N. mollis owes its success to the condensation of atmospheric water from undersaturated air onto its leaf surfaces by exuded salts, and absorption of this water by its leaves, or by shallow roots following drip onto the s...

From the publisher (Princeton University Press) Charles Darwin was driven to distraction by plant spirals, growing so exasperated that he once begged a friend to explain the mystery “if you wish to save me from a miserable death.” The legendary naturalist was hardly alone in feeling tormented by these patterns. Plant spirals captured the gaze of Le...

Although the formation of new walls during plant cell division tends to follow maximal tensile stress direction, analyses of individual cells over time reveal a much more variable behavior. The origin of such variability as well as the exact role of interphasic microtubule behavior before cell division have remained mysterious so far. To approach t...

All kingdoms of life have evolved tip‐growing cells able to mine their environment or deliver cargo to remote targets. The basic cellular processes supporting these functions are understood in increasing detail, but the multiple interactions between them lead to complex responses that require quantitative models to be disentangled. Here, I review t...

A two-stage system (partial nitritation (PN) and anammox processes) was used to remove nitrogen from the dewatering liquor originating from the thermal hydrolysis/anaerobic digestion (THP/AD) of municipal WWTP sludge. Two strategies were tested to start up the PN reactor: 1) maintaining a fixed hydraulic retention time (HRT) and increasing the ammo...

Understanding the mechanistic basis for cell morphology is a central problem in biology. Evolution has converged on tip growth many times, yielding filamentous cells, yet tip-growing cells display a range of apical morphologies. To understand this variability, we measured the spatial profiles of cell-wall expansion for three species that spanned th...

The growing concerns over desertification have spurred research into technologies aimed at acquiring water from nontraditional sources such as dew, fog, and water vapor. Some of the most promising developments have focused on improving designs to collect water from fog. However, the absence of a shared framework to predict, measure, and compare the...

The growing concerns over desertification have spurred research into technologies aimed at acquiring water from non-traditional sources such as dew, fog, and water vapor. Some of the most promising developments have focused on improving designs to collect water from fog. However, the absence of a shared framework to predict, measure and compare the...

The bromeliadTillandsia landbeckiithrives in the Atacama desert of Chile using the fogcaptured by specialized leaf trichomes to satisfy its water needs. However, it is still unclearhow the trichome ofT. landbeckiiand otherTillandsiaspecies is able to absorbfine waterdroplets during intermittent fog events while also preventing evaporation when the...

The growing concerns over desertification have spurred research into technologies aimed at acquiring water from non-traditional sources such as dew, fog, and water vapor. Some of the most promising developments have focused on improving designs to collect water from fog. However, the absence of a shared framework to predict, measure and compare the...

Mechanical signals play many roles in cell and developmental biology. Several mechanotransduction pathways have been uncovered, but the mechanisms identified so far only address the perception of stress intensity. Mechanical stresses are tensorial in nature, and thus provide dual mechanical information: stress magnitude and direction. Here we propo...

Nitrification and sulfur-based autotrophic denitrification processes can be used to remove ammonia from wastewater in an economical way. However, under certain operational conditions, these processes accumulate intermediate compounds, such as elemental sulphur, nitrite, and nitrous oxide, that are noxious for the environment. In order to predict th...

General mechanical considerations provide an upper bound for the take-off velocity of any jumper, animate or inanimate, rigid or soft body, animal or vegetal. The take-off velocity is driven by the ratio of released energy to body mass. Further, the mean reaction force on a rigid platform during push-off is inversely proportional to the characteris...

Tillandsia landbeckii is a rootless plant thriving in the hyper-arid Atacama Desert of Chile. These plants use unique cellulose-based microscopic structures called trichomes to collect fresh water from coastal fog. The trichomes rely on a passive mechanism to maintain an asymmetrical transport of water: they allow for the fast absorption of liquid...

Polar growth is a fundamental mode of cell morphogenesis observed in nearly all major groups of organisms. Among polarly growing cells, the angiosperm pollen tubes have emerged as powerful experimental systems in large part because of their oscillatory growth, which provides a window into the network of interactions regulating morphogenesis. Empiri...

Pollen tubes exhibit rapid polar growth that can display either stationary (steady) or oscillatory elongation rates. The oscillatory mode of growth provides a window into the network of interactions regulating the morphogenesis of these cells. Empirical studies of oscillatory pollen tube growth have sought to uncover the sequence of cellular events...

The study of phyllotaxis has focused on seeking explanations for the occurrence of consecutive Fibonacci numbers in the number of helices paving the stems of plants in the two opposite directions. Using the disk-accretion model, first introduced by Schwendener and justified by modern biological studies, we observe two distinct types of solutions: t...

The cell theory developed in the early 19th century teaches us that only cells beget cells. As a consequence, the evolution of life on Earth is but a long sequence of cell divisions; wherever this sequence is broken, life ends. Cell division is not only how organisms perpetuate themselves, it is also one way in which complexity is built during deve...

Leptosporangiate ferns have evolved an ingenious cavitation catapult to disperse their spores. The mechanism relies almost entirely on the annulus, a row of 12-25 cells, which successively: (i) stores energy by evaporation of the cells' content, (ii) triggers the catapult by internal cavitation, and (iii) controls the time scales of energy release...

Interview de David Larousserie

The amazing structural variety of cells is matched only by their functional diversity, and reflects the complex interplay between biochemical and mechanical regulation. How both regulatory layers generate specifically shaped cellular domains is not fully understood. Here, we report how cell growth domains are shaped in fission yeast. Based on quant...

By demonstrating broad transitions between different modes of cell division, these works paved the way for a fully stochastic division rule in which two or more division planes, each representing a local area minimum, compete to express themselves in a given cell geometry. However, an important question remained: can a unique stochastic model expla...

The bewildering morphological diversity found in cells is one of the starkest illustrations of life’s ability to self-organize. Yet the morphogenetic mechanisms that produce the multifarious shapes of cells are still poorly understood. The shared similarities between the walled cells of prokaryotes, many protists, fungi, and plants make these group...

Thin, doubly curved shells occur commonly in nature and their mechanical properties and modes of deformation are very important for engineering structures of all scales. Although there has been substantial work on the stability and modes of failure of thin shells, relatively little work has been done to understand the conditions that promote contin...

Various monocotyledon pollen grains have a geometric design. They are constituted by a stiff thin shell with an n-fold rotationally symmetric softer sector. The mechanic response of these inhomogeneous shells can be approximated as an open shell. Isometric modes are known to be energetically favorable for thin shells when they are possible. Althoug...

Premise of the study: Despite the large diversity in biological cell morphology, the processes that specify and control cell shape are not yet fully understood. Here we study the shape of tip-growing, walled cells, which have evolved a polar mode of cell morphogenesis leading to characteristic filamentous cell morphologies that extend only apicall...

Various plants and fungi have evolved ingenious devices to disperse their spores. One such mechanism is the cavitation-triggered catapult of fern sporangia. The spherical sporangia enclosing the spores are equipped with a row of 12 to 13 specialized cells, the annulus. When dehydrating, these cells induce a dramatic change of curvature in the spora...

Basal organisms such as slime mold and fungi grow as extended networks that can reach several square meters in size. Despite lacking a central coordination center, these organisms are able to globally reshape their morphology in response to local cues, such as the presence of a patch of nutrient. How are local signals integrated in these organisms,...

Plants have developed fascinating mechanisms to create ultra fast movements that often reach the upper limit allowed by physical laws. Inspiration for new technologies is one of the reasons for the strong interest for these mechanisms, along with the deep interest of understanding complex, natural systems. The fern sporangium is a capsule that cont...

Although they lack muscle, plants have evolved a remarkable range of mechanisms to create motion, from the slow growth of shoots to the rapid snapping of carnivorous plants and the explosive rupture of seed pods. Here we review the key fluid mechanics principles used by plants to achieve movements, summarizing current knowledge and recent discoveri...

Morphogenesis of plant cells is tantamount to the shaping of the stiff cell wall that surrounds them. To this end, these cells integrate two concomitant processes: 1), deposition of new material into the existing wall, and 2), mechanical deformation of this material by the turgor pressure. However, due to uncertainty regarding the mechanisms that c...

The continuum mechanical treatment of biological growth and remodeling has attracted considerable attention over the past fifteen years. Many aspects of these problems are now well-understood, yet there remain areas in need of significant development from the standpoint of experiments, theory, and computation. In this perspective paper we review th...

The division of eukaryotic cells involves the assembly of complex cytoskeletal structures to exert the forces required for chromosome segregation and cytokinesis. In plants, empirical evidence suggests that tensional forces within the cytoskeleton cause cells to divide along the plane that minimizes the surface area of the cell plate (Errera's rule...

The filaree (Erodium cicutarium), a small, flowering plant related to geraniums, possesses a unique seed dispersal mechanism: the plant can fling its seeds up to half a meter away; and the seeds can bury themselves by drilling into the ground, twisting and untwisting in response to changes in humidity. These feats are accomplished using awns, helic...

Plant and animal biomechanists have much in common. Although their frame of reference differs, they think about the natural world in similar ways. While researchers studying animals might explore airflow around flapping wings, the actuation of muscles in arms and legs, or the material properties of spider silk, researchers studying plants might exp...

Many edible mushrooms eject their spores (about 10 microns in size) at high speed (about 1 m/s) using surface tension forces in a few microseconds. Basically the coalescence of a droplet with the spore generates the necessary momentum to eject the spore. We have detailed this mechanism in \cite{noblin2}. In this article, we give some details about...

Upon release from the anther, pollen grains of angiosperm flowers are exposed to a dry environment and dehydrate. To survive this process, pollen grains possess a variety of physiological and structural adaptations. Perhaps the most striking of these adaptations is the ability of the pollen wall to fold onto itself to prevent further desiccation. R...

Plant cell growth is an irreversible yielding of the cell wall to the internal turgor pressure of the cell. Plant cells can control their expansion by modulating the structure and material properties of their wall. One major level of control is the distribution and orientation of the stiff cellulose microfibrils within the wall. When aligned, the m...

The growth of plant, fungal, and bacterial cells depends critically on two processes: the deposition of new wall material at the cell surface and the mechanical deformation of this material by forces developed within the cell. To understand how these two processes contribute to cell growth, we have undertaken an experimental and theoretical investi...

Most basidiomycete fungi actively eject their spores. The process begins with the condensation of a water droplet at the base of the spore. The fusion of the droplet onto the spore creates a momentum that propels the spore forward. The use of surface tension for spore ejection offers a new paradigm to perform work at small length scales. However, t...

Twining plants use their helical stems to clasp supports and to generate a squeezing force, providing stability against gravity. To elucidate the mechanism that allows force generation, we measured the squeezing forces exerted by the twiner Dioscorea bulbifera while following its growth using time-lapse photography. We show that the development of...

The current paradigm for plant morphogenesis dictates that cortical microtubules serve as a template for the assembly of the cellulosic wall which, in turn, controls cell expansion. A new study provides direct evidence that tissue-level tension can serve as a mechanical signal to align cortical microtubules, thus establishing a critical feedback me...

In tip-growing plant cells such as pollen tubes and root hairs, surface expansion is confined to the cell apex. Vesicles containing pectic cell wall material are delivered to this apical region to provide the material necessarily to build the expanding cell wall. Quantification of wall expansion reveals that the surface expansion rates are not high...

At dehiscence, which occurs when the anther reaches maturity and opens, pollen grains dehydrate and their volume is reduced. The pollen wall deforms to accommodate the volume loss, and the deformation pathway depends on the initial turgid pollen grain geometry and the mechanical properties of the pollen wall. We demonstrate, using both experimental...

The filaree (Erodium cicutarium), a small, flowering plant related to geraniums, possesses a unique seed dispersal mechanism: the plant can fling its seeds up to half a meter away; and the seeds can bury themselves by drilling into the ground, twisting and untwisting in response to changes in humidity. These feats are accomplished using awns, helic...

If you can't demonstrate it with balloons, it's probably not important anyway. Stephen A. Wainwright, quoted in [Vogel 2003]. Morphogenesis of plant, fungal, and bacterial cells depends heavily on surface mechanics and in particu-lar on the stiff wall that surrounds these cells. In this paper, we show that tubular rubber balloons offer a useful phy...

Development of the plant body entails many pattern forming events at scales ranging from the cellular level to the whole plant. Recent evidence suggests that mechanical forces play a role in establishing some of these patterns. The development of cellular configurations in glandular trichomes and the rippling of leaf surfaces are discussed in depth...

This article presents new methods for the geomet-rical analysis of phyllotactic patterns and their comparison with patterns produced by simple, dis-crete dynamical systems. We introduce the concept of ontogenetic graph as a parsimonious and mech-anistically relevant representation of a pattern. The ontogenetic graph is extracted from the local geom...

Plant cell morphogenesis depends critically on two processes: the deposition of new wall material at the cell surface and the mechanical deformation of this material by the stresses resulting from the cell's turgor pressure. We developed a model of plant cell morphogenesis that is a first attempt at integrating these two processes. The model is bas...

The rapid closure of the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) leaf in about 100 ms is one of the fastest movements in the plant kingdom. This led Darwin to describe the plant as "one of the most wonderful in the world". The trap closure is initiated by the mechanical stimulation of trigger hairs. Previous studies have focused on the biochemical respon...

We present a mechanical study of the snapping closure of the carnivorous plant Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula),which exhibits one of the fastest motion in the vegetable kingdom (typically 100 ms). Using high-speed video measurements and non-invasive microscopy techniques, we propose that the fast closure of the Venus flytrap results from a snap-b...

Wall expansion in tip-growing cells shows variations according to position and direction. In Medicago truncatula root hairs, wall expansion exhibits a strong meridional gradient with a maximum near the pole of the cell. Root hair cells also show a striking expansion anisotropy, i.e. over most of the dome surface the rate of circumferential wall exp...

A non‐destructive replica method and a 3‐D reconstruction algorithm are used to analyse the geometry and expansion of the shoot apex surface. Surface expansion in the central zone of the apex is slow and nearly isotropic while surface expansion in the peripheral zone is more intense and more anisotropic. Within the peripheral zone, the expansion ra...

A salient feature of shoot meristem growth is the maintenance of distinct anatomical and morphological features despite a continuous flux of cells. To investigate how meristem organization is self-perpetuated, we developed a protocol for the analysis of meristem growth in 3-D. Our protocol uses a non-destructive replica method to follow the pattern...

Fluorescent microspheres were used as material markers to investigate the relative rates of cell surface expansion at the growing tips of Medicago truncatula root hairs. From the analysis of tip shape and microsphere movements, we propose three characteristic zones of expansion in growing root hairs. The center of the apical dome is an area of 1- t...

Tip growth is basic and deceptively simple. A single cell has a wall that is cylindrical with a prolate spheroid as an end cap. The growth takes place in the end cap. The mechanical loading which drives the growth consists of turgor pressure of magnitude 5–10 atmospheres. We report recent measurements on the geometry of the growth that provide deta...

Acetabularia acetabulum is the organism that provided the first compelling experimental evidence both for the role of an organelle whose function was unknown, the nucleus, and for the existence of "morphogenetic substances," the behavior of which presaged the discovery of mRNA in other organisms. This giant unicell holds special appeal as a model s...

The mechanism for initiation of lateral organs in the shoot apical meristem is still unknown. In this article we investigate one critical component of a buckling mechanism of organ initiation (that is, the presence and distribution of compressive stresses in the meristem). Direct evidence for compression in the sunflower capitulum was obtained from...

The dasycladalean algae produce diverse whorled structures, among which the best known are the vegetative and reproductive whorls of Acetabularia acetabulum. In this paper, we review the literature pertaining to the origin of these structures. The question is addressed in terms of the necessary pattern-forming events and the possible mechanisms inv...

Tip growth is basic and deceptively simple. A single cell has a wall that is cylindrical with a prolate spheroid as an end cap. The growth takes place in the end cap. The mechanical loading which drives the growth consists of turgor pressure of magnitude 5-10 atmospheres.We report recent measurements on the geometry of the growth that provide detai...

We investigate the snapping closure of the carnivorous plant Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), which exhibits one of the fastest motion in the vegetable kingdom (typically 100 ms). From experimental measurements using a high-speed camera, we propose that the very fast closure of the trap results from a mechanical instability, based on the change o...

Submitted to the Department of Biological Sciences. Copyright by the author. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Stanford University, 2001.