In a test of the "island rule," according to which small animals grow larger in size and large animals shrink after colonizing islands, a study of plants that have colonized islands in the Southwest Pacific from the New Zealand mainland finds that the plants' stature and leaf area obey the island rule but that plant seed size does not, suggesting that the island rule is pervasive in both plants and animals but that it does not apply equally to all aspects of organisms' functional traits.
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Article #19-07424: "Plants obey (and disobey) the island rule," by M. Biddick, A. Hendriks, and K. C. Burns.
MEDIA CONTACT: Matthew Biddick, Victoria University of Wellington, NEW ZEALAND; e-mail: < matt.biddick@vuw.ac.nz >
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences