Growth grammars simulating trees – an extension of L-systems incorporating local variables and sensitivity

The rule-based formal language of "stochastic sensitive growth grammars" was designed to describe algorithmically the changing morphology of forest trees during their lifetime under the impact of endogenous and exogenous factors, and to generate 3-D simulations of tree structures in a systematic manner. The description in the form of grammars allows the precise specification of structural models with functional components. These grammars (extended L-systems) can be interpreted by the software GROGRA (Growth grammar interpreter) yielding time series of attributed 3-D structures representing plants. With some recent extensions of the growth-grammar language (sensitive functions, local variables) it is possible to model environmental control of shoot growth and some simple allocation strategies, and to obtain typical competition effects in tree stands qualitatively in the model.