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Allometry, the study of the growth rate of an organism's parts in relation to the whole, has produced exciting results in research on animals. Now distinguished plant biologist Karl J. Niklas has written the first book to apply allometry to studies of the evolution, morphology, physiology, and reproduction of plants.

Niklas covers a broad spectrum of plant life, from unicellular algae to towering trees, including fossil as well as extant taxa. He examines the relation between organic size and variations in plant form, metabolism, reproduction, and evolution, and draws on the zoological literature to develop allometric techniques for the peculiar problems of plant height, the relation between body mass and body length, and size-correlated variations in rates of growth. For readers unfamiliar with the basics of allometry, an appendix explains basic statistical methods.

For botanists interested in an original, quantitative approach to plant evolution and function, and for zoologists who want to learn more about the value of allometric techniques for studying evolution, Plant Allometry makes a major contribution to the study of plant life.

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• 1 Growth and Metabolism
• Introduction Growth and Development/Multicellularity and Modular
• Construction Size and Shape Scaling
• Principles/Dimensional Analysis
• The 2/3-Power Law
• The 3/4-Power Law Growth and Time
• Photosynthesis and Two Physical Laws
• Organs versus Organisms
• Summary
• 2 Aquatic Plants
• Introduction
• Absorption Coefficients of Water and Plant Cells
• The Package Effect and the Scaling of Cell Geometry and Shape
• The Transport Equations and Dimensionless
• Groupings of Variables
• Fluid Flow and Mass and Heat Transport: Phytoplankton
• Self-Propulsion: The Volvocales
• The Mechanics of Ciliary
• Motion Hydrodynamic Forces and the Mechanics of Attached Aquatic Plants
• Summary
• 3
• Introduction
• Heat and Mass
• Transfer and Boundary
• Layer Resistances
• Stomatal Resistances
• The Mechanical Scaling of Foliage Leaves
• Mechanical Design: General Considerations
• The Mechanical Scaling of Tree Height
• The Mechanical Scaling of Other Terrestrial Plants
• The Scaling of Self-Thinning
• Summary
• 4 Reproduction
• Introduction
• The Scaling of Reproductive Biomass
• Flowers, Fruits, and Seeds Branches and Reproductive Structures
• The Scaling of Long-Distance
• Dispersal Size and Gender Expression
• Summary
• 5 Evolution
• Introduction
• Heterochrony Heterauxesis and Allomorphosis
• On Being Small or Large
• The Scaling of the Plant Life Cycle
• The Evolution of Plant Life Histories
• Summary

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CHOICE Review

Quite frankly, Plant Allometry is not a book title that piqued this reviewer's interest. However, he was fascinated with the wealth of information presented. Having worked firsthand at developing allometric relationships such as leaf length/leaf area and having speculated for years about correlations between leaf area and stem diameter and between reproductive growth and vegetative growth, he found the numerous examples presented to be interesting and insightful. This forest geneticist reviewer especially appreciated the underlying notion in the book that most form-function relationships of plants are the consequence of natural selection and adaptive evolutionary changes. The book is organized into five chapters and has an appendix on statistical methods. Chapter topics include relationships in general botany, aquatic plants, terrestrial plants, plant reproduction, and the role of evolution in determining plant relationships. Highly recommended. General; upper-division undergraduate through professional. D. F. Karnosky; Michigan Technological University