Understanding and modelling the dynamics of data point clouds of relative growth rate and plant size

Relative growth rates (RGR) have both intrigued and irritated many plant scientists since they were proposed as characteristics of performance in the early 20th century. Particularly, common trend RGR to decrease with increasing size, also referred ontogenetic drift, has given rise debates much criticism. In this study, we showed that, plants that germinated at same time, it is obtain a linear relationship between size for each survey year which – when pulled together one graph eventually form system cascading elliptical point clouds over time. This data reflects well-known exponential decline aforementioned drift. Using 12 individual-tree time series Pinus radiata Chile studied drift based on new spatially explicit explanatory model allowing reconstruction trajectories. Favourable environmental conditions enforced accelerated dynamics. Less favourable reduced strength slowed down growth. We found parameter estimates more precise stronger size. Both, interpretable parameters evaluation characteristics, described well. Interestingly, slopes semi-major axes RGR-size ellipses changed signs precisely smaller trees ceased dominate population larger started contribute disproportionately overall processes.