  We report on the buckling and subsequent collapse of orthotropic elastic
spherical shells under volume and pressure control. Going far beyond what is
known for isotropic shells, a rich morphological phase space with three
distinct regimes emerges upon variation of shell slenderness and degree of
orthotropy. Our extensive numerical simulations are in agreement with
experiments using fabricated polymer shells. The shell buckling pathways and
corresponding strain energy evolution are shown to depend strongly on material
orthotropy. We find surprisingly robust orthotropic structures with strong
similarities to stomatocytes and tricolpate pollen grains, suggesting that the
shape of several of Nature's collapsed shells could be understood from the
viewpoint of material orthotropy.
