Trade-offs between seed and leaf size (seed-phytomer-leaf theory): functional glue linking regenerative with life history strategies … and taxonomy with ecology?

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

While the 'worldwide leaf economics spectrum' (Wright IJ, Reich PB, Westoby M, et al. 2004. The worldwide leaf economics spectrum. Nature : 821-827) defines mineral nutrient relationships in plants, no unifying functional consensus links size attributes. Here, the focus is upon leaf size, a much-studied plant trait that scales positively with habitat quality and components of plant size. The objective is to show that this wide range of relationships is explicable in terms of a seed-phytomer-leaf (SPL) theoretical model defining leaf size in terms of trade-offs involving the size, growth rate and number of the building blocks (phytomers) of which the young shoot is constructed.

Methods

Functional data for 2400+ species and English and Spanish vegetation su

SUBMITTER: Hodgson JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5714152 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature