Growth is a widely used term in plant science and ecology, but it can have different meanings depending on the context and the spatiotemporal scale of analysis. At the meristem level, growth is associated with the production of cells and initiation of new organs. At the organ or plant scale and over short time periods, growth is often used synonymously with tissue expansion, while over longer time periods the increase in biomass is a common metric. At even larger temporal and spatial scales, growth is mostly described as net primary production. Here, we first address the question ‘what is growth?’. We propose a general framework to distinguish between the different facets of growth, and the corresponding physiological processes, environmental drivers and mathematical formalisms. Based on these different definitions, we then review how plant growth can be measured and analysed at different organisational, spatial and temporal scales. We conclude by discussing why gaining a better understanding of the different facets of plant growth is essential to disentangle genetic and environmental effects on the phenotype, and to uncover the causalities around source or sink limitations of plant growth.

中文翻译：

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植物生长：什么、怎么做和为什么

生长是植物科学和生态学中广泛使用的术语，但根据上下文和分析的时空尺度，它可以有不同的含义。在分生组织水平，生长与细胞的产生和新器官的形成有关。在器官或植物规模和短期内，生长通常与组织扩张同义使用，而在较长时期内，生物量的增加是一个常见的指标。在更大的时空尺度上，增长主要被描述为净初级生产。在这里，我们首先解决“什么是增长？”的问题。我们提出了一个通用框架来区分生长的不同方面，以及相应的生理过程、环境驱动因素和数学形式。基于这些不同的定义，然后，我们回顾了如何在不同的组织、空间和时间尺度上测量和分析植物生长。我们最后讨论了为什么更好地了解植物生长的不同方面对于解开遗传和环境对表型的影响以及揭示植物生长源或汇限制的因果关系至关重要。