Abstract
Enquist et al.1 raise several points that they claim cast doubt on our findings and interpretation2 regarding whole-plant relations of respiration, R, with plant mass, M, and total plant nitrogen content, N. We agree with Enquist et al. that R does not scale isometrically with M across all plants. However, their assertion that we claim that isometric scaling (R ∝ Mθ, with θ = 1) is universal in plants of all sizes is incorrect — in fact, we conclude the opposite2, noting that there is isometric scaling within individual experiments, non-isometric scaling of respiration versus mass across all data pooled, and no common relation across all data2.
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References
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Reich, P., Tjoelker, M., Machado, JL. et al. Does the exception prove the rule? (Reply). Nature 445, E10–E11 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05549
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05549
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