Simulated Annealing of Two-Dimensional Plant Canopies

Introduction The spatial arrangement of leaves in a plant canopy is governed by a number of factors such as radiative and diffusive couplings and architectural support. Concentrating on how the plant's canopy structure affects its carbon balance through its efficacy in trapping radiation, the aim of this research is to investigate nearoptimal arrangements of leaves using an optimizing simulation technique. A Monte Carlo simulation method called simulated annealing is being developed to perform the optimization. Leaves are modelled as line segments which join points on a regular two-dimensional lattice. A net carbon balance is computed for a given configuration of leaves as the sun transcends a number of sky sectors. To improve a given leaf configuration, a Poster presented at ESA95 -- Ecological Society of Australia Open Forum & Symposium, Hobart, 1995. small change is made to it which is then considered to be an improvement based on