Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Barcelona, Faculty of Biology, Av. Diagonal 643, E-08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Trends Plant Sci. 2018 Nov;23(11):985-993. doi: 10.1016/j.tplants.2018.08.001. Epub 2018 Aug 27.
Tree growth and longevity are key features to understand fundamental issues of plant biology, environmental sciences, and current forest management plans. Here I discuss current evidence on the limits of tree growth and longevity and present a new conceptual framework to understand how and why they are closely interconnected. Despite the tremendous plasticity of trees, growth and longevity are limited not only by biotic and abiotic stresses, but also by age-related structural constraints such as height-related hydraulic limitations and vascular discontinuities, which are strongly species specific. Continuous growth and plastic branching may serve as a means to reach extreme longevities in some nonclonal trees, but even in these millennial organisms immortality can be attained only through the germ line.
树木的生长和寿命是理解植物生物学、环境科学和当前森林管理计划基本问题的关键特征。在这里，我讨论了树木生长和寿命极限的现有证据，并提出了一个新的概念框架，以了解它们是如何以及为什么紧密相连的。尽管树木具有巨大的可塑性，但生长和寿命不仅受到生物和非生物胁迫的限制，还受到与年龄相关的结构限制的限制，如与高度相关的水力限制和血管不连续性，这些限制具有强烈的物种特异性。连续的生长和可塑性的分枝可能是一些非克隆树木达到极端长寿的一种手段，但即使在这些千年生物中，只有通过生殖系才能达到不朽。
