Strategies of growth and population dynamics of tundra plants

Abstract

Studies of plants growing in tundra regions have tended to concentrate either upon whole plant communities or upon the physiology and metabolism of aboveor below-ground plant organs considered separately. It is suggested here that detailed physiological studies, especially of the fixation and conservation of energy, can be integrated within the framework of the life cycle of the whole plant. When combined with information on reproductive biology and population dynamics, the construction of a long term framework is possible within which short term processes involving individual plant organs can be interpreted. Tundra plants are particularly amenable to this treatment. Clear innate markers of annual growth (caused by marked seasonality in climate) and slow decomposition rates result in the preservation of records of the past history of individual plants and the populations of which they were part.