Why Be a Shrub? A Basic Model and Hypotheses for the Adaptive Values of a Common Growth Form.

ABSTRACT: Shrubs are multi-stemmed short woody plants, more widespread than trees, important in many ecosystems, neglected in ecology compared to herbs and trees, but currently in focus due to their global expansion. We present a novel model based on scaling relationships and four hypotheses to explain the adaptive significance of shrubs, including a review of the literature with a test of one hypothesis. Our model describes advantages for a small shrub compared to a small tree with the same above-ground woody volume, based on larger cross-sectional stem area, larger area of photosynthetic tissue in bark and stem, larger vascular cambium area, larger epidermis (bark) area, and larger area for sprouting, and faster production of twigs and canopy. These components form our Hypothesis 1 that predicts h

SUBMITTER: Gotmark F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4961008 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature