Does the exception prove the rule? (Reply)

Abstract

In my News & Views article1, I argued for the need to include factors other than body size to create a truly universal theory of plant scaling. I based my expectations for the metabolic scaling theory on Enquist's own conclusion that “unlike animal clades...all plants comply with a single allometric formula that spans 20 orders of magnitude in body mass”2. Because in this recent analysis the authors applied a ¾ scaling slope across plants ranging in size from unicellular algae (< 10−7 g body mass), to duckweed (10−5 to 10−2 g), to forest herbs and trees including giant Sequoia (10−1 to 107 g), I found the comparison to the data of Reich . 3 entirely reasonable. Nevertheless, I explicitly discussed my concern about whether and how the findings of Reich et al. could extend to mature trees1.