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Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 52, No. 363, pp. 2051-2056, October 1, 2001
© 2001 Oxford University Press

Original Papers

Small plants, large plants: the importance of plant size for the physiological ecology of vascular epiphytes

Gerhard Zotz1,4, Peter Hietz2 and Gerold Schmidt3

1 Botanisches Institut der Universität Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 6, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland
2 Institute of Botany, University of Agricultural Sciences, Gregor Mendel-Str. 33, A-1180 Vienna, Austria
3 Lehrstuhl für Botanik II der Universität Würzburg, Julius-von-Sachs-Platz 3, D-97082 Würzburg, Germany

Recently, a number of publications have reported that many physiological properties of vascular epiphytes are a function of plant size. This short review will summarize what is known to date about this phenomenon, describe the possible mechanism and will discuss the consequences for the present understanding of epiphyte biology. Size-related changes are also known from other plant groups and it is argued that close attention should be paid to the size of the organisms under study in order to understand the performance and survival of a species in the field. In the light of these findings, the results of many earlier studies on epiphyte ecophysiology are now difficult to interpret because essential information on the size of the specimens used is missing.

Key words: Epiphytes, intraspecific variation, nutrient relations, phenotypic plasticity, photosynthesis, plant size, water relations.


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