Functional morphology of plants - a key to biomimetic applications

Learning from living organisms has emerged from a mainly curiosity-driven examination, where helpful functions of biological structures have been copied, into systematic biomimetic approaches that transfer a targeted function and its underlying principles from the biological model to a technical product. Plant biomimetics is based on functional morphology, which combines the knowledge gained from the morphology, anatomy and mechanics of plants and makes a statement about their form-structure-function relationship. Since the functional morphology of plants has become key to biomimetic applications, we present its central role in deciphering the functional principles that can be applied to engineering solutions. We consider that the future of biomimetics will include bioinspired developments that will contribute to better sustainability than that achieved by conventional products.

Automated summary

What started as a curiosity-driven exploration has evolved into systematic biomimetic approaches, where the useful functions of biological structures are transferred to technical products. Plant biomimetics utilizes knowledge from plant morphology, anatomy, and mechanics to explore the form-structure-function relationship, with functional morphology playing a key role in developing engineering solutions. The future of biomimetics will focus on bioinspired developments for better sustainability.