Area de Ecología, Dpto de Botánica, Ecología y Fisiología Vegetal, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Cordoba, Cordoba, Spain.
Departamento de Economía e Historia Económica, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jan 8;11(1):49. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-79709-w.
Economic principles can be extended to biological organisms as they optimize the use of resources, but their use in biology has been limited. We applied concepts from traditional economics to the main production unit of plants, the leaf. We quantified the profitability (profit/cost of investment) of leaves from seven biomes worldwide and compared those to the profitability of companies. Here we demonstrate for the first time key similarities and differences between leaf and human economics. First, there was a weak, but positive relationship between profitability and size, both for leaves and companies. Second, environment has a strong effect on profitability, with high values in leaves from biomes with short growth periods and, for companies associated with innovation. Third, shorter longevity of productive units was related to higher profitability. In summary, by comparing economic behaviours of plants and humans there is potential to develop new perspectives on plant ecological strategies and plant evolution.
经济原理可以扩展到生物有机体，因为它们可以优化资源的利用，但在生物学中的应用有限。我们将传统经济学的概念应用于植物的主要生产单位——叶子。我们量化了来自全球七个生物群落的叶子的盈利能力（利润/投资成本），并将其与公司的盈利能力进行了比较。在这里，我们首次展示了叶子和人类经济学之间的关键相似点和不同点。首先，叶子和公司的盈利能力与大小之间存在着微弱但积极的关系。其次，环境对盈利能力有很强的影响，在生长周期短的生物群落中，叶子和与创新相关的公司的盈利能力较高。第三，生产单位的寿命越短，盈利能力越高。总之，通过比较植物和人类的经济行为，有可能为植物的生态策略和植物进化发展提供新的视角。
