Influence of leaf shape on the scaling of leaf surface area and length in bamboo plants

作者：Peijian Shi, Yirong Li, Ülo Niinemets, Edward Olson, Julian Schrader · 发表于：Trees · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1007/s00468-020-02058-8 · 被引用次数：44 · 研究领域：Leaf Properties and Growth Measurement、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Remote Sensing in Agriculture

Abstract Key message Using more than 10,000 bamboo leaves, we found that the scaling between leaf surface area and length follows a uniform power law relationship mainly relying on the degree of variation in leaf shape (reflected by the ratio of leaf width to length). Abstract A recent study based on leaf data of different plant taxa showed that the scaling of leaf surface area ( A ) with linear leaf dimensions was best described by the Montgomery equation (ME) that describes A as the product of leaf length ( L ) and width ( W ). Following from ME, a proportional relationship between A and the square of L has been proposed, but the validity of this simplified equation strongly depends on leaf shape ( W/L ratio). Here, we show that the simplified equation can be applied to a group of closely related plants sharing a similar W/L ratio with low degree of uncertainty. We measured A , L and W of more than 10,000 leaves from 101 graminoid taxa (subfamily Bambusoideae) having similar elongated leaf shapes. We found that ME applies to the leaves of all bamboo taxa investigated. The power law equation that was used to describe a scaling relationship of A vs. L also predicted leaf area with high accuracy, but the variability measured as the root-mean-square error (RMSE) was greater than that using ME, indicating that leaf width also plays an important role in predicting leaf area. However, the dependence of the prediction accuracy of A on W is intimately associated with the extent of t...