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(American Journal of Botany. 2009;96:531-536.) doi: 10.3732/ajb.0800250 © 2009 Botanical Society of America, Inc.

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Predicting the allometry of leaf surface area and dry mass¹

² Department of Plant Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 USA ³ Institüt für Biologie III, Universität Freiburg, Freiburg D-79104, Germany

ABSTRACT

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 M_t ^{< 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.

Key Words: diminishing returns hypothesis • Hagen–Poiseuille equation • Lemna minor • Myriophyllum heterophyllum • plant allometry • scaling relationships

Received for publication 21 July 2008. Accepted for publication 9 October 2008.

FOOTNOTES

¹ The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for suggestions to improve this paper. Funding from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, is gratefully acknowledged.

⁴ Author for correspondence (e-mail: kjn2{at}cornell.edu)

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