CAREER: Scaling Plant Life History, Ontogeny, Diversity, and Ecology: Elaboration of a General Model

生物学面临的核心问题之一是确定支配形式、功能和多样性进化的一般原则。此外，生物组织的几个尺度上的连接模式和过程也很复杂。职业发展计划将允许在亚利桑那大学制定严格的生物尺度综合培训计划。拟议的研究计划包括两部分：1)扩展一个通用的异速生长框架，以解释维管植物的个体发育生长模式。这一重点将提供异速生长理论的理论扩展和经验评估，以解释维管植物的个体发育和分配模式；2)扩展理论框架，以定量预测植物的生理方面以及分配和生长速率的变化如何影响生态群落和生态系统中大尺度动态的许多属性。这一研究方向是：(I)记录与生物量在生态群落中的生产和分配相关的显著尺度规律；(Ii)阐明植物异速生长的限制如何影响生态群落的规模结构和动态；以及(Iii)突出关于资源和能量在生态系统中移动的新理论。提出的多方面研究将结合异速生长理论的阐述、大型全球数据集的汇编和实验温室操作来评估新理论见解的定量预测。这项拟议的研究将有助于显著提高我们机械地预测生物学模式和过程的能力。

One of the central problems facing biology is to identify the generalprinciples that govern the evolution of form, function and diversity.Adding to this problem is the complexity of connecting pattern and processacross several scales of biological organization. The career developmentplan will allow for the development of a rigorous integrative trainingprogram in biological scaling at the University of Arizona. The proposedresearch program consists of two parts: 1) Expand a general allometricframework to account for patterns of ontogenetic growth across vascularplants. This focus will provide theoretical extensions and empiricalassessments of allometric theory to account for patterns of ontogeneticgrowth and allocation across vascular plants; 2) Extend theoreticalframework to quantitatively predict how physiological aspects of plantsand variation in allocation and growth rate ramify to influence numerousattributes of large-scale dynamics in ecological communities andecosystems. This line of investigation is geared toward: (i) documentingprominent scaling laws associated with the production and allocation ofbiomass across ecological communities; (ii) elucidating how theconstraints of plant allometry influences the size structuring anddynamics of ecological communities; and (iii) highlighting a novel theoryfor the movement of resources and energy through ecosystems. Themultifaceted research proposed will combine elaboration of allometrictheory, the compilation of large global datasets, and experimentalgreenhouse manipulations to assess the quantitative predictions of newtheoretical insights. The proposed research will contribute to asignificant advancement in our ability to mechanistically predict thescaling of pattern and process in biology.