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

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

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.