How trees allocate carbon for optimal growth: insight from a game-theoretic model.
How trees allocate photosynthetic products to primary height growth and secondary radial growth reflects their capacity to best use environmental resources. Despite substantial efforts to explore tree height-diameter relationship empirically and through theoretical modeling, our understanding of the biological mechanisms that govern this phenomenon is still limited. By thinking of stem woody biomass production as an ecological system of apical and lateral growth components, we implement game theory to model and discern how these two components cooperate symbiotically with each other or compete for resources to determine the size of a tree stem. This resulting allometry game theory is further embedded within a genetic mapping and association paradigm, allowing the genetic loci mediating the carbon allocation of stemwood growth to be characterized and mapped throughout the genome. Allometry game theory was validated by analyzing a mapping data of stem height and diameter growth over perennial seasons in a poplar tree. Several key quantitative trait loci were found to interpret the process and pattern of stemwood growth through regulating the ecological interactions of stem apical and lateral growth. The application of allometry game theory enables the prediction of the situations in which the cooperation, competition or altruism is an optimal decision of a tree to fully use the environmental resources it owns.
Center for Computational Biology at Beijing Forestry University, China.|Institute of Forest Resource Information Techniques at Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
Liyong
L
Fu
Beijing Key Laboratory of Ornamental Plants Germplasm Innovation & Molecular Breeding, National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture, School of Landscape Architecture at Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
Lidan
L
Sun
Department of Statistics at The Pennsylvania State University, USA.|Department of Mathematics at the University of North Texas, Denton, USA.
Han
H
Hao
Center for Computational Biology at Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
Libo
L
Jiang
Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Poplar Germplasm Enhancement and Variety Improvement at Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
Sheng
S
Zhu
Center for Computational Biology at Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
Meixia
M
Ye
Forest Management in the Institute of Forest Resource Information Techniques at Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
Shouzheng
S
Tang
Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Poplar Germplasm Enhancement and Variety Improvement at Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
Minren
M
Huang
Center for Computational Biology, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
Rongling
R
Wu
D002244:Carbon / Q000378:metabolism*; D005716:Game Theory; D008954:Models, Biological; D011157:Population Dynamics; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci; D012621:Seasons; D014197:Trees / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism*
D002244:Carbon