The effect of temperature on the developmental rates of seedling emergence and leaf-unfolding in two dwarf bamboo species

Abstract

The mean and variance of developmental rates of bamboos at different temperatures follow a power law. The rate isomorphy hypothesis, demonstrated in insects and mites, does not hold in bamboos. The developmental time of plants and poikilotherms can be significantly affected by temperature. Developmental rate (i.e. the reciprocal of developmental time) of arthropods and germination rate of some plant seeds have been demonstrated to follow a linear function with temperature. The rate isomorphy hypothesis in entomology suggests a lower developmental threshold below which development of all life stages terminates. If this hypothesis also holds for plants, the estimated lower threshold for one development stage could be used for predicting thresholds of other stages. Here, we tested this hypothesis to compare the developmental time of seedling emergence and the time from seedling emergence to the unfolding of the third leaf in two bamboo species. We used five constant thermal environments from 18.5 to 28.5 °C with an increment of 2.5 °C. Both species showed a linear relationship between temperature and developmental rate, with the mean and variance of developmental rates following a power law. Using the bootstrap percentile method, we showed that the isomorphy hypothesis does not hold for both species. The effect of temperature on the survival rate at the time of seedling emergence differed significantly between the two species.