This project brings together Dr. William K. Smith of the Department of Botany, the University of Wyoming , with his Australian colleague, Dr. David T. Bell of the Department of Botany, Western Australian University. The U.S. PI will spend approximately six months in 1993 visiting Western Australia. The proposed research will utilize the flora of southwestern Australia to test hypotheses regarding the functional significance of leaf structure to photosynthetic performance. The cooperative research will test several of the hypotheses developed by the Dr. Smith under former and continuing NSF grants, as well as a more comprehensive and synthetic hypothesis that has recently been formulated regarding the existence of photosynthetic symmetry in plant leaves. The hypothesis regarding photosynthetic symmetry may be of fundamental significance in understanding how leaf structure relates functionally to photosynthetic performance. The Australian investigator is an authority on leaf morphological and anatomical properties. The U.S. PI brings to the project an approach that involves some novel and innovative instrumentation for the measurement of functional influences of leaf structure on photosynthesis.
