Guides

task-oriented · start here

These guides are for readers who want to learn plant by running small, complete examples. If you are new to the package, work through Getting started in order, then move on to patches, strategies, and environmental drivers. For the ideas behind the model, read the theory. For function arguments and return values, use the reference site.

Getting started

• Installation — install plant and check that it loads.
• Your first individual — grow a single plant and read its state, rates, and trajectory.

After these two pages, continue to Patch dynamics. A patch is the smallest simulation in which plants compete with one another.

Running the model

• Patch dynamics — grow a patch of competing plants and explore the light environment.
• Strategies & traits — change parameters, build trait matrices, and set control accuracy.
• Extrinsic drivers — drive a run with time-varying rainfall or birth rates.
• Calibration — understand what calibration requires and where it sits in the wider plant workflow.

Worked examples

• Example analysis — the full pipeline, setup to results.
• Self-thinning — recover the classic size–density line.
• Emergent properties — integrate patch outputs up to the metapopulation.

TF24 in depth

• Hydraulics and acclimation — compare instantaneous optimisation with a gradually acclimating hydraulic state.
• Non-structural carbohydrate storage — follow how carbon reserves buffer growth and mortality through changing conditions.