Growth, carbon allocation and cost of plant tissues

The capacity to change in size, mass, form and/or number is an essential feature of life, and the term ‘growth’ can refer to any or all of these types of change. In this chapter, we focus on methods to analyze one type of growth — the increase in dry mass of plants or plant parts through time. We consider components of growth that occur over time periods ranging from minutes to years, and at structural levels ranging from tissues to the whole plant. Our central theme is that a variety of processes at different temporal and structural scales contribute to plant growth and success. In some studies, the control of photosynthate partitioning may be of critical interest in understanding growth, while in others, it may be the relative costs of twigs versus leaves.