XVI International Botanical Congess

Plants do not consist of independent traits, architecture integrates phenotype evolutionarily and developmentally. We studied relationships among architectural plasticity, meristem dynamics and ecological flexibility using a stochastic L-system simulation with realistic environmental, growth and architectural parameters. Our objective was to determine which trait correlations and plasticity relations necessarily follow from different architectural strategies. We found that strong correlations among architectural, life-history, plasticity and fitness traits are specified by mode of meristem allocation and type of phenological control. Simulations of reproductive timing and spatial foraging suggested that architecturally mediated correlation structures constrain ecological flexibility. The quality and degree of this constraint vary with architectural strategy.