Effects of size variation and spatial structure on plastic response of plant height to light competition

Plants only interact with neighbors over restricted distances,so local conditions are of great significance for plants.In this study,a spatially-explicit,individual-based model was constructed to explore the effects of size variation and spatial structure on adaptive plasticity of plant height in response to light competition.In the model a plant maintains its height at an optimal value in order to maximize its growth rate,and this optimal height increases with the increase of the intensity of light competition experienced by the individual plant.When the spatial pattern of the population is non-uniform or there is size variation among individual plants,the height growth curves of individuals different from each other vary due to the differences in the local light environment,and there is also variation in the allocation of photosynthate to height growth among the individual plants.There is no ESS height or height growth strategy on which all plants will converge.Our results indicate that the plasticity of plants' height growth reactions to the light competition should be considered at the individual level and they argue strongly for the importance of the spatial pattern and neighborhood effects in generating the diversity of heights and height growth strategies in plant population.