Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY
Volume 96, Issue 2, Pages 531-536Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.3732/ajb.0800250
Keywords
diminishing returns hypothesis; Hagen-Poiseuille equation; Lemna minor; Myriophyllum heterophyllum; plant allometry; scaling relationships
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Funding
- College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University
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The manner in which increases in leaf surface area S scale with respect to increases in leaf dry mass M-t within and across species has important implications to understanding the ability of plants to harvest sunlight, grow, and ultimately reproduce. Thus far, no mechanistic explanation has been advanced to explain why prior work shows that the scaling exponent governing the S to M-t relationship is generally significantly less than one (i.e., S proportional to M-t(alpha<1.0)) such that increases in M-t yield diminishing returns with respect to increases in S across most species. Here, we show analytically why this phenomenon occurs and present equations that predict trends observed in the numerical values of scaling exponents for the S vs. M-t relationships observed across dicot tree species and two aquatic vascular plant species.
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