This is a book about how plants work. It is about the questions
that plant physiologists ask and how they go about seeking answers to those
questions. Most of all, this book is about how plants do the things they do in their
everyday life. The well-known conservationist John Muir once wrote: When we try to pick out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to
everything in the universe. Muir might well have been referring to the
writing of a plant physiology textbook. The scope of plant physiology as a
science is very broad, ranging from biophysics and molecular genetics to
environmental physiology and agronomy. Photosynthetic metabolism not only
provides carbon and energy for the growing plant, but also determines the
capacity of the plant to withstand environmental stress. The growth and
development of roots, stems, leaves, and flowers are regulated by a host of
interacting factors such as light, temperature, hormones, nutrition, and carbon
metabolism. As a matter of practical necessity more than scientific reality, we
have treated many of these topics in separate chapters. To get the most out of this
book, we suggest you be aware of these limitations as you read and think about
how various mechanisms are integrated to form a functional plant.
Plant physiology is also a very active field of study and new
revelations about how plants work are reported in the literature almost daily.
Many models and explanations contained in this book may have been revised by the
time the book appears on the market. If you find a particular topic interesting
and wish to learn more about it, the listed publications at the end of each
chapter are your gateway into the relevant research literature. You can learn
what has happened since this book was written by seeking out reviews and
opinions published in the more recent editions of those same journals. In spite
of its presumed objectivity, science ultimately relies on the interpretation of
experimental results by scientists—interpretations that are often found to be
inadequate and filled with uncertainty. However, as results and observations
accumulate, interpretations are refined and the degree of uncertainty diminishes.
This is the nature of scientific discovery and the source of the real
excitement of doing science. In this book, we have attempted to convey some
sense of this scientific process.
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