Investigating the Functional and Architectural Diversity of Leaf Venation Networks

Abstract

Plants exhibit a great diversity of leaf venation network architectures, which may reflect trade-offs among multiple leaf functions. Here, a team of 20 undergraduate and postgraduate students led by Dr. Matos collected samples from the University of California Botanical Garden to describe this diversity. The team generated a dataset of 31 functional and several architectural leaf venation traits, sampled from a phylogenetically diverse set of 122 species. This dataset is being used for the identification of venation architecture-function trade-offs and to elucidate the evolutionary processes that resulted in such a diversity of networks.Ilaine Silveira Matos, Mickey Boakye, Monica Antonio, Sonoma Carlos, Ashley Chu, Miguel A. Duarte, Andrea Echevarria, Adrian Fontao, Lisa Garcia, LeeAnn Huang, Breanna Carrillo Johnson, Shama Joshi, Diana Kalantar, Srinivasan Madhavan, Samantha McDonough, Izzi Niewiadomski, Nathan Nguyen, Hailey Jiyoon Park, Caroline Pechuzal, James Rohde, Roshni Sahu, Meg Scudder, Satvik Sharma, LeeDar Sneor, Jason To, Bradley Vu, Natalie Vuong, Nicole Yokota, Luiza Aparecido, Holly Forbes, Mark Fricker, and Benjamin Wong Blonde