Rank distributions and biomass partitioning of plants

Alexander S. Komarov Institute of Physico-chemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science of Russian Academy of Sciences
Elena V. Zubkova Institute of Physico-chemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science of Russian Academy of Sciences
Maija Salemaa Finnish Forest Research Institute
Raisa Mäkipää Finnish Forest Research Institute

Keywords: Zipf’s law, optimal plant organs partitioning, dwarf shrubs, trees, ranks and classification

Abstract

We study how well biomass partitioning patterns of plant compartments (organs) follow mathematical rank distributions using empirical data from the tree and dwarf shrub species in temperate-boreal zone as a test material. The simplest form of a rank distribution (Zipf’s law) shows a good statistical fit to the data and its semi-empirical dependencies can successfully be applied also in a complex ecosystem models.

Author Biography

Alexander S. Komarov, Institute of Physico-chemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science of Russian Academy of Sciences

Laboratory of Ecosystem Modelling

Published

2013-06-03

Issue

FSPM2013

Section

1B Reconstructing and observing plant structure

Authors who publish with this proceedings volume agree to the following terms:

Authors retain copyright and grant the Conference organisers right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this proceedings volume.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the proceeding's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this proceedings volume.