Dynamic scaling in the growth of a non-branching plant, Cardiocrinum cordatum.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 23028928.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0045317 and PMC identifier PMC3291254.
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Abstract
We investigated whole-plant leaf area in relation to ontogenetic variation in leaf-size for a forest perennial herb, Cardiocrinum cordatum. The 200-fold ontogenetic variability in C. cordatum leaf area followed a power-law dependence on total leaf number, a measure of developmental stage. When we normalized for plant size, the function describing the size of single leaves along the stem was similar among different-sized plants, implying that the different-sized canopies observed at different times in the growth trajectory were fundamentally similar to each other. We conclude that the growth trajectory of a population of C. cordatum plant leaves obeyed a dynamic scaling law, the first reported for a growth trajectory at the whole-plant level.