Dataset Information

Mixed-power scaling of whole-plant respiration from seedlings to giant trees.

ABSTRACT: The scaling of respiratory metabolism with body mass is one of the most pervasive phenomena in biology. Using a single allometric equation to characterize empirical scaling relationships and to evaluate alternative hypotheses about mechanisms has been controversial. We developed a method to directly measure respiration of 271 whole plants, spanning nine orders of magnitude in body mass, from small seedlings to large trees, and from tropical to boreal ecosystems. Our measurements include the roots, which have often been ignored. Rather than a single power-law relationship, our data are fit by a biphasic, mixed-power function. The allometric exponent varies continuously from 1 in the smallest plants to 3/4 in larger saplings and trees. Therefore, our findings support the recent findings of Reich et al. [Reich PB, Tjoelker MG, Machado JL, Oleksyn J (2006) Universal scaling of respiratory metabolism, size, and nitrogen in plants. Nature 439:457-461] and West, Brown, and Enquist [West GB, Brown JH, Enquist BJ (1997) A general model for the origin of allometric scaling laws in biology. Science 276:122 -126.]. The transition from linear to 3/4-power scaling may indicate fundamental physical and physiological constraints on the allocation of plant biomass between photosynthetic and nonphotosynthetic organs over the course of ontogenetic plant growth.

SUBMITTER: Mori S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2824365 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Mixed-power scaling of whole-plant respiration from seedlings to giant trees.

Mori Shigeta S Yamaji Keiko K Ishida Atsushi A Prokushkin Stanislav G SG Masyagina Oxana V OV Hagihara Akio A Hoque A T M Rafiqul AT Suwa Rempei R Osawa Akira A Nishizono Tomohiro T Ueda Tatsushiro T Kinjo Masaru M Miyagi Tsuyoshi T Kajimoto Takuya T Koike Takayoshi T Matsuura Yojiro Y Toma Takeshi T Zyryanova Olga A OA Abaimov Anatoly P AP Awaya Yoshio Y Araki Masatake G MG Kawasaki Tatsuro T Chiba Yukihiro Y Umari Marjnah M

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20100108 4

The scaling of respiratory metabolism with body mass is one of the most pervasive phenomena in biology. Using a single allometric equation to characterize empirical scaling relationships and to evaluate alternative hypotheses about mechanisms has been controversial. We developed a method to directly measure respiration of 271 whole plants, spanning nine orders of magnitude in body mass, from small seedlings to large trees, and from tropical to boreal ecosystems. Our measurements include the root ...[more]

PMID: 20080600

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Project description:Theoretical models of allometric scaling provide frameworks for understanding and predicting how and why the morphology and function of organisms vary with scale. It remains unclear, however, if the predictions of 'universal' scaling models for vascular plants hold across diverse species in variable environments. Phenomena such as competition and disturbance may drive allometric scaling relationships away from theoretical predictions based on an optimized tree. Here, we use a hierarchical Bayesian approach to calculate tree-specific, species-specific, and 'global' (i.e. interspecific) scaling exponents for several allometric relationships using tree- and branch-level data harvested from three savanna sites across a rainfall gradient in Mali, West Africa. We use these exponents to provide a rigorous test of three plant scaling models (Metabolic Scaling Theory (MST), Geometric Similarity, and Stress Similarity) in savanna systems. For the allometric relationships we evaluated (diameter vs. length, aboveground mass, stem mass, and leaf mass) the empirically calculated exponents broadly overlapped among species from diverse environments, except for the scaling exponents for length, which increased with tree cover and density. When we compare empirical scaling exponents to the theoretical predictions from the three models we find MST predictions are most consistent with our observed allometries. In those situations where observations are inconsistent with MST we find that departure from theory corresponds with expected tradeoffs related to disturbance and competitive interactions. We hypothesize savanna trees have greater length-scaling exponents than predicted by MST due to an evolutionary tradeoff between fire escape and optimization of mechanical stability and internal resource transport. Future research on the drivers of systematic allometric variation could reconcile the differences between observed scaling relationships in variable ecosystems and those predicted by ideal models such as MST.

Dataset Information

Mixed-power scaling of whole-plant respiration from seedlings to giant trees.

Publications

Mixed-power scaling of whole-plant respiration from seedlings to giant trees.

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