Optimal resource allocation and prolonged dormancy strategies in herbaceous plants

1. Understanding the fitness consequences of different life histories is critical for explaining their diversity and for predicting effects of changing environmental conditions. However, current theory on plant life histories relies on phenomenological, rather than mechanistic, models of resource production. 2. We combined a well-supported mechanistic model of ontogenetic growth that incorporates differences in the size-dependent scaling of gross resource production and maintenance costs with a dynamic optimization model to predict schedules of reproduction and prolonged dormancy (plants staying below ground for ≥ 1 growing season) that maximize lifetime offspring production. 3. Our model makes three novel predictions: First, maintenance costs strongly influence the conditions under which a monocarpic or polycarpic life history evolves and how resources should be allocated to reproduction by polycarpic plants. Second, in contrast to previous theory, our model allows plants to comp...1. 解析不同植物生活史的适合度后果，对于阐释其多样性、预测环境变化带来的影响均至关重要。然而，当前植物生活史理论所依托的是资源生产的现象学模型，而非机制模型。 2. 我们将一套得到广泛验证的个体发育生长机制模型（该模型纳入了总资源生产与维持成本的尺寸依赖缩放差异）与动态优化模型相结合，以此预测可最大化终身后代产出的繁殖时序与长期休眠模式，其中长期休眠指植物地下停留≥1个生长季的状态。 3. 本模型提出三项全新预测：其一，维持成本会显著影响单次生殖与多次生殖生活史的演化条件，以及多次生殖植物的资源向繁殖分配的策略。其二，与以往理论不同，本模型允许植物进行