Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biosciences Related to the Environment for FY 1998

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Abstract DBI-9804135 Brian J. Enquist This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biosciences Related to the Environment for 1998. This fellowship provides an opportunity for the Fellow to gain additional scientific training beyond the doctoral degree and to pursue innovative and imaginative research into the fundamental mechanisms underlying the interactions between organisms and their environment at the molecular, cellular, organismal, population, community and/or ecosystem level in any area of biology supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences of the National Science Foundation. Each fellowship supports a research and training plan to be carried out in a sponsoring laboratory. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled Allometry as a fundamental mechanism linking evolutionary and ecological pattern in vascular plants. Traditionally, the role of plant size has not been as important to the study of botany as it has been in animal research. In animal studies, organism size (or allometry) has been shown to influence nearly all aspects of organismal biology and diversity. Interestingly, allometric relationships have been shown to be described by a simple mathematical relationship described by an exponent that is a quarter-power. The fact that these quarter-power allometries describe nearly all aspects of biology (anatomy, physiology, ecology of populations, life- histories) strongly suggests that one or a few critical mechanisms might link biological organization and process. Recently, I have proposed a general model for the origin of biological allometries. The model is based on the transportation of resources through vascular networks. Perhaps its biggest insight is that although plant and animals differ, allometrically they share numerous relationships. The underlying assumption of this work is that allometry offers a window by which one can critically investigate fundamental mechanisms influencing pla nt (and animal) structure, function, and evolution. This proposal will explore the specific predictions of the model in vascular plants by using various empirical measurements of vascular anatomy and physiology, tied with computer simulation and mathematical modeling. Specifically this work will test the role of vascular systems in dictating plant architecture, evolution, and constraining ecological patterns in local ecological communities.