The final size of plant organs, such as leaves, is tightly controlled by environmental and genetic factors that must spatially and temporally coordinate cell expansion and cell cycle activity. However, this regulation of organ growth is still poorly understood. The aim of this study is to gain more insight into the genetic control of leaf size in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) by performing...

—Leaf physiognomy (size and shape) in fossils is commonly used to reconstruct terrestrial paleoclimate. Physiognomic leaf-climate methods are underpinned mostly by the covariation between toothed margins and mean annual temperature (MAT) and between leaf size and mean annual precipitation. Digital leaf physiognomy, a multivariate method based largely on variables that are functionally linked to...

Variation in the size, shape, and positioning of leaves as the major photosynthetic organs strongly impacts crop yield, and optimizing these aspects is a central aim of cereal breeding [1, 2]. Leaf growth in grasses is driven by cell proliferation and cell expansion in a basal growth zone [3]. Although several factors influencing final leaf size and shape have been identified from rice and maiz...

In resprouting species, fire-induced topkill causes a reduction in height and leaf area without a comparable reduction in the size of the root system, which should lead to an increase in the efficiency of water transport after fire. However, large plants undergo a greater relative reduction in size, compared with small plants, so we hypothesized that this enhancement in hydraulic efficiency wou...

Hydraulic conductance was measured on leaf and stem segments excised from sugarcane plants at different stages of development. Maximum transpiration rates and leaf water potential (V'L) associated with maximum transpiration were also measured in intact plants as a function of plant size. Leaf specific hydraulic conductivity (LsJ and transpiration on a unit leaf area basis (E) were maximal in pl...

Predicting phenotypes based on genotypes and understanding the effects of complex multi-locus traits on plant performance requires a description of the underlying developmental processes, growth trajectories, and their genomic architecture. Using data from Brassica rapa genotypes grown in multiple density settings and seasons, we applied a hierarchical Bayesian Function-Valued Trait (FVT) appro...

Diverse leaf forms ranging from simple to compound leaves are found in plants. It is known that the final leaf size and shape vary greatly in response to developmental and environmental changes. However, changes in leaf size and shape have been quantitatively characterized only in a limited number of species. Here, we report development of LeafletAnalyzer, an automated image analysis and classi...

The utility of multivariate foliar physiognomy, specifically the Climate Leaf Analysis Multivariate Program (CLAMP), to yield reliable estimates of enthalpy and hence paleoelevation has been demonstrated by comparison with other proxies, yet concerns have arisen regarding uncertainties arising from 1) apparent ambiguities in the scoring regime and 2) the way leaf size is scored. Regarding 1) sc...

Leaf-stem allometry is an important spectrum that linked to biomass allocation and life history strategy in plants, although the determinants and evolutionary significance of leaf-stem allometry remain poorly understood. Leaf and stem architectures - including stem area/mass, petiole area/mass, lamina area/mass, leaf number, specific leaf area (LA), and mass-based leafing intensity (LI) - were ...