Can crocheting help save corals? Can we learn something about developmental genetics in the process?

The bit about “hyperbolic geometry” is very interesting, but I wonder what its biological significance is. Why do organisms develop in this manner? Is the act of crocheting these analogous to the developmental process of organisms with hyperbolic geometry? Are the “crochet mutations” analogous to genetic mutations that affect development?

The physical nature of this work suggests that not all forms can be represented by mathematics: that some objects must be directly modeled. Computational biology anyone?