It is known that plants are reliant on abiotic environmental factors, such as light, nutrients, temperature, etc., for their growth. Choose a species of plant you would like to focus on and one abiotic factor that influences its growth, and create an equation/function that predicts how the growth of your chosen species will be affected by an increase in the abiotic environmental factor. What is the plant’s growth rate as a function of the abiotic factor? Is there a point when too much of the abiotic factor chosen becomes inhibitory to growth?

Theory

• formal definition of the derivative (Neuhauser, Claudia. Calculus for Biology and Medicine. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000. 90-101)

References