Many of us have seen trembling aspen leaves flutter in the wind. The unique shape of the aspen leaf petiole causes this flutter, but is there an evolutionary advantage to this trait? Plant physiologist John Roden asked himself this question, and published a series of papers that investigated different aspects of aspen leaf flutter and photosynthesis. This short video discusses one potential advantage of leaf flutter identified by Roden.

NOTE: In the video, I mistakenly note that Roden found that fluttering can serve to "pump" CO2 into the leaf. While he did test this hypothesis, he found that this was NOT the case; he rejected that hypothesis.

Here are the paper references:

Roden, J.S., and R.W. Pearcy. 1993. The effect of leaf flutter on the flux of CO2 in poplar leaves. Functional Ecology 7:669-675.

Roden, J.S., and R.W. Pearcy. 1993. The effect of leaf flutter on the temperature of poplar leaves and its implications for carbon gain. Plant, Cell and Environment 16:571-577.

Roden, J.S. and R.W. Pearcy. 1993. Effect of leaf flutter on the light environment of poplars. Oecologia 93:201-207.

Roden, J.S. 2003. Modeling the light interception and carbon gain of individual fluttering aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx) leaves. Trees 17:117-126.

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