Are leaves optimally designed for self-support? An investigation on giant monocots

TL;DR

This study investigates whether leaves are optimally designed for self-support in giant monocots, combining mechanical modeling with empirical measurements to understand the balance between light interception and structural support.

Contribution

It introduces a mechanical model predicting optimal leaf dimensions for self-support and compares these predictions with real measurements from palm and banana leaves.

Findings

Longer palms are close to optimal self-support design.

Shorter leaves are influenced more by other selective pressures.

Mechanical model effectively predicts leaf dimensions for self-support.

Abstract

Leaves are the organs that intercept light and create photosynthesis. Efficient light interception is provided by leaves oriented orthogonal to most of the sun rays. Except in the polar regions, this means orthogonal to the direction of acceleration due to gravity, or simply horizontal. The leaves of almost all terrestrial plants grow in a gravity field that tends to bend them downward and therefore may counteract light interception. Plants thus allocate biomass for self-support in order to maintain their leaves horizontal. To compete with other species (inter-species competition), as well as other individuals within the same species (intra-species competition), self-support must be achieved with the least biomass produced. This study examines to what extent leaves are designed to self-support. We show here that a basic mechanical model provides the optimal dimensions of a leaf for light interception and self-support. These results are compared to measurements made on leaves of various giant monocot species,especially palm trees and banana trees. The comparison between experiments and model predictions shows that the longer palms are optimally designed for self-support whereas shorter leaves are shaped predominantly by other parameters of selection.