Water Relations of Plants and Soils
Water Relations of Plants and Soils

Author: Paul J. Kramer

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 1995-07-17

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 0124250602

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Water Relations of Plants and Soils, successor to the seminal 1983 book by Paul Kramer, covers the entire field of water relations using current concepts and consistent terminology. Emphasis is on the interdependence of processes, including rate of water absorption, rate of transpiration, resistance to water flow into roots, soil factors affecting water availability. New trends in the field, such as the consideration of roots (rather than leaves) as the primary sensors of water stress, are examined in detail. Addresses the role of water in the whole range of plant activities Describes molecular mechanisms of water action in the context of whole plants Synthesizes recent scientific findings Relates current concepts to agriculture and ecology Provides a summary of methods

Crassulacean Acid Metabolism
Crassulacean Acid Metabolism

Author: M. Kluge

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 3642670385

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The acid metabolism of certain succulent plants, now known as Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) has fascinated plant physiologists and biochemists for the last one and a half centuries. However, since the basic discoveries of De Saussure in 1804 that stem joints of Opuntia were able to remove CO from the 2 atmosphere during the night, and of Heyne in 1815 (see Wolf, 1960) that organic acids accumulate in the leaves of Bryophyllum calycinum during the night, the two main aspects of CAM, diurnal CO gas exchange and metabolism of malic acid, 2 have first been studied nearly independently. Hence, it is not surprising that most research to elucidate the mechanism of CAM has been during the last 15 years since CO exchange and malate metabolism were studied and interpreted in its 2 context. These efforts finally resulted in a clear realization that the CAM phenom enon is a variation on the mode of how plants can photosynthetically harvest CO from the atmosphere. 2 The interpretation of CAM in this sense was stimulated by the discovery of another variant of photosynthesis, the C -pathway (see Black, 1973; Hatch and 4 Slack, 1970; Hatch, 1976). Because this newly discovered photosynthetic pathway is recognized to be very closely related to the CAM pathway, the work on the latter became intensified during these last years.

Crassulacean Acid Metabolism
Crassulacean Acid Metabolism

Author: Klaus Winter

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 3642790607

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Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) represents one of the best-studied metabolic examples of an ecological adaptation to environmental stress. Well over 5 % of all vascular plant species engage in this water-conserving photosynthetic pathway. Intensified research activities over the last 10 years have led to major advances in understanding the biology of CAM plants. New areas of research reviewed in detail in this book include regulation of gene expression and the molecular basis of CAM, the ecophysiology of CAM plants from tropical environments, the productivity of agronomically important cacti and agaves, the ecophysiology of CAM in submerged aquatic plants, and the taxonomic diversity and evolutionary origins of CAM.

Plant Respiration
Plant Respiration

Author: Hans Lambers

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-03-30

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1402035896

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Respiration in plants, as in all living organisms, is essential to provide metabolic energy and carbon skeletons for growth and maintenance. As such, respiration is an essential component of a plant’s carbon budget. Depending on species and environmental conditions, it consumes 25-75% of all the carbohydrates produced in photosynthesis – even more at extremely slow growth rates. Respiration in plants can also proceed in a manner that produces neither metabolic energy nor carbon skeletons, but heat. This type of respiration involves the cyanide-resistant, alternative oxidase; it is unique to plants, and resides in the mitochondria. The activity of this alternative pathway can be measured based on a difference in fractionation of oxygen isotopes between the cytochrome and the alternative oxidase. Heat production is important in some flowers to attract pollinators; however, the alternative oxidase also plays a major role in leaves and roots of most plants. A common thread throughout this volume is to link respiration, including alternative oxidase activity, to plant functioning in different environments.

Vascular Plants as Epiphytes
Vascular Plants as Epiphytes

Author: Ulrich Lüttge

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 3642744656

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In his lectures my teacher Karl Mägdefrau used to say that one only becomes a real plant scientist when one enters a tropical rainforest. For me this initiation occurred in 1969 in northern Queensland, Australia, and was associated with the greatest excitement. On another level it received confirmation when I set out in 1983 together with some friends and colleagues for the first detailed ecophysiological studies of epiphytes in the wet tropics in situ in the island of Trinidad and later for similar work in Venezuela. This then promoted the idea of organizing a special symposium on "The evolution and ecophysiology of vascular plants as epiphytes" during the XIV International Botanical Congress in luly 1987 in Berlin, and to ask some of the speakers to produce chapters for a small monograph on the interesting ecologically defined group of plants "epiphytes" as presented in this volume of "Ecological Studies". The enthusiasm of the participants of the symposium giving reports and adding to the discussion was most stimulating, and it appears that epiphytes might gain well-deserved, wider consideration in the future. The cooperation with the authors of this book was very pleasant and I appreciated the new contacts established with adepts of the "epiphyte community". The chapters were organized and arranged covering first more gen eral aspects with setting the scene in Chapter 1, the evolution of epi phytism in Chapter 2 and the role of CO -concentrating mechanisms in 2 Chapter 3.

Environmental and Biological Control of Photosynthesis
Environmental and Biological Control of Photosynthesis

Author: R. Marcelle

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 9401019576

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This book reports the proceedings of a meeting held in the 'Limburgs Universitair Centrum' , Diepenbeek, Belgium, August 26 to 30, 1974. In convening this meet ing, my aim was to bring together a small number of specialists working on photosynthesis of course but also always keeping in mind that plants are in fluenced by their environment (temperature, light quality and intensity, air com position, daylength . . . . . ) and can differently react according to their stage of deve lopment. In general, all these specialists work on whole plants cultivated in well known conditions (they are not 'market spinach specialists') but, when necessary, give up the idea of measuring photochemical activities in isolated they don't chloroplasts, enzyme kinetics . . . etc. It is noticeable that about 50% of them are working in laboratories directly involved with applied research in agriculture or forestry. The format of the meeting was intentionally kept small but it allowed generous time for discussion; thanks are due to Drs. O. BJÖRKMAN, J. W. BRADBEER, M. M. LUDLOW and C. B. OSMOND for taking the chairs during these discussions. In such a small meeting, the choice of invited scientists was really a personnal one and thus reflected my own fields of interest. When planning the conference, I was continually divided between the wish for inviting other interesting people and the necessity of keeping time free for discussions.