What Does Optimization Theory Actually Predict About Crown Profiles Of
bs_bs_banner Plant, Cell and Environment (2013) 36, 1547–1563 doi: 10.1111/pce.12091 What does optimization theory actually predict about crown profiles of photosynthetic capacity when models incorporate greater realism? THOMAS N. BUCKLEY1, ALESSANDRO CESCATTI2 & GRAHAM D. FARQUHAR3 1Department of Biology, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA, 94928, USA, 2European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Ispra, Italy and 3Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia ABSTRACT Amthor 1994). This assumption is popular for two reasons: firstly, it is widely perceived to be identical to optimal N Measured profiles of photosynthetic capacity in plant crowns allocation and, therefore, consistent with natural selection typically do not match those of average irradiance: the ratio (Field 1983a; Hirose & Werger 1987; Sands 1995), and sec- of capacity to irradiance decreases as irradiance increases. ondly, if leaf absorptance is invariant among leaves and if the This differs from optimal profiles inferred from simple time-averaged and instantaneous profiles of irradiance are models. To determine whether this could be explained by equivalent, it renders models of leaf photosynthesis scale- omission of physiological or physical details from such invariant, and therefore applicable at crown scales (Farquhar models, we performed a series of thought experiments using 1989). Most data indeed show that photosynthetic capacity is a new model that included more realism than previous positively correlated with local irradiance within crowns. models. We used ray-tracing to simulate irradiance for 8000 However, the correlation is not linear; instead, it seems to leaves in a horizontally uniform canopy. For a subsample of saturate at high light, such that the photosynthetic capacity 500 leaves, we simultaneously optimized both nitrogen allo- per unit of incident irradiance declines up through the crown cation (among pools representing carboxylation, electron (e.g.
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