‘artificial dwarfing’ hypothesis

  Premise which suggests that individual cycads can sometimes attain maturity at a smaller than normal size as a result of anthropogenic forces (sensu Taylor et al., 2009), e.g. in a particular population of Zamia neurophyllidia near Changuinola, Panama—in which the stem of every plant is routinely cut by the local inhabitants, and the mucilage produced at the wound site used as a type of glue—plants attain sexual maturity at an uncharacteristically small size, thus appearing dwarfed.

  See also neoteny, precocious.