Effects of Wind on the Allometry of Two Species of Plants in an Elfin Cloud Forest

Thigmomorphogenesis includes the effects of mechanical perturbation on plant growth. To test whether thigmomorphogenesis is evident at different scales within plants, we investigated the effect of wind on allometric relationships between specific plant parts. We chose two species from the elfin cloud forest of Puerto Rico that have contrasting growth habits, the shrub Clibadiun erosum (Asteraceae) and the palm Prestoea acuminata var. montana (Arecaceae), and subjected them to barrier-protected and wind-exposed treatments. For C. erosum , we compared the allometry of stems and branches against three allometric models that predict that plant height or branch length increases at the 1, 2/3, and 1/2 power of stem diameter. Only the geometric similarity model (scaling exponent of 1) seemed to hold when plants were exposed to the wind. We found relatively fewer leaves per number of branches produced and fewer leaves per increment of branch diameter in the plants of C. erosum exposed to the wind. Mean petiole length ratios (petiole length/basal radius) of P. acuminata were higher on leaves of barrier-protected plants for both simple and compound leaves, indicating that petioles were stouter and mechanically safer in the wind-exposed plants. We suggest that alteration of the allometric relationships of plant parts, organs, or plant modules (stems and branches of C. erosum and leaves of P. acuminata ) and alteration of the number of plant parts (leaves and branches of C. erosum ) are adaptive responses resulting from the mechanical perturbation induced by wind in the elfin forest.