Competition models for plant stems

Alberto Bressan, Sondre T. Galtung, Audun Reigstad, Johanna Ridder

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

The models introduced in this paper describe a uniform distribution of plant stems competing for sunlight. The shape of each stem, and the density of leaves, are designed in order to maximize the captured sunlight, subject to a cost for transporting water and nutrients from the root to all the leaves. Given the intensity of light, depending on the height above ground, we first solve the optimization problem determining the best possible shape for a single stem. We then study a competitive equilibrium among a large number of similar plants, where the shape of each stem is optimal given the shade produced by all others. Uniqueness of equilibria is proved by analyzing the two-point boundary value problem for a system of ODEs derived from the necessary conditions for optimality.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1571-1611
Number of pages41
JournalJournal of Differential Equations
Volume269
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 5 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Analysis
  • Applied Mathematics

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