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GENERAL BOTANY

BOTANY. The study of the biology of plants. Plantae. The Greeny Things.

Why should we care about the study of PLANTS?

  • Without plants, most of life on earth as we know it would not exist.

  • Plants comprise about 98% of the earth's biomass!

  • Plants are primarily responsible for creating our oxygen-rich atmosphere via the light reactions of photosynthesis.

  • Plants are the earth's main autotrophs and fixers of carbon and nitrogen.

  • Plants provide the habitat and food upon which almost all other living things ultimately depend.

  • Plants are responsible for most of the products on which you rely to survive (vegetable and animal matter), have a good quality of life (fabric for clothing, medicines), as well as the more frivolous ones (spices, perfumes, dyes, dissolvable sutures, food stabilizers, emulsifiers, Starbuck's, etc.).
  • And don't forget the potential of biofuels (ethanol produced from food crops)
  • Almost every living (terrestrial, and many aquatic) thing interacts with plants in csome way. Plants are involved in every type of symbiotic community interaction known.

    Recall: A community is an assemblage of populations in a particular area or habitat. It is the living portion of the ecosystem.

    The number of different species found in an ecosystem comprise that system's species diversity. Diversity varies greatly among ecosystems, and hence, so do the interactions among populations in those ecosystems.

    Although Gleason's hypothesis for community organization has received the most support from field-based studies, species interactions are important components of community dynamics.

    When it comes to the plant community, the Interactive Hypothesis is more strongly supported. It is the plant community--determined by climate and soil conditions--that determines what else can live in any particular ecosystem or biome.

    SYMBIOSIS - This term (from the Greek sym, meaning "together" and bios, meaning "life") refers to the members of two different species (i.e., two populations) having some sort of ecological interaction that affects both populations. Here are some of the theoretical types of interactions that can evolve over many generations. When two species coevolve.

    "+" means that the population benefits from the interaction

    "-" means that the population is harmed by the interaction

    "0" means that the population is not affected by the interaction

    Let's see what we can come up with for various types of plants...

    type of interaction

    pop'n A

    pop'n B

    nature of effect

    obligate mutualism

    +

    +

    both populations benefit and cannot survive without one another
                                                           EXAMPLE: Bucket Orchid and Euglossine Bee

    type of interaction

    pop'n A

    pop'n B

    nature of effect

    protocooperation

    +

    +

    both populations benefit but can survive without one another
                                                           EXAMPLE: Think: Agriculture

    type of interaction

    pop'n A

    pop'n B

    nature of effect

    competition

    -

    -

    populations inhibit one another
                                                            EXAMPLES: Dense Forest; Allelopathic Plants

    type of interaction

    pop'n A

    pop'n B

    nature of effect

    predation

    +

    -

    one population kills and feeds on the other
                                                            EXAMPLES: You Might Know Some of These Guys...

    type of interaction

    pop'n A

    pop'n B

    nature of effect

    parasitism

    +

    -

    one population (parasite) feeds on, but does not kill outright members of the other population (host)
                                                           EXAMPLE: Yes, there are Parasitic Plants, some of them beloved.

    type of interaction

    pop'n A

    pop'n B

    nature of effect

    commensalism

    +

    0

    one population (the commensal) benefits from the other, which is not affected
                                                           EXAMPLE: Epiphytes of many kinds.

    Plants are studied at various levels in biology...

  • Plant Anatomy - The study of the internal and external structure of plants.
      Early plant anatomists included Italian anatomist and all-around Science GuyMarcello Malpighi, who discovered plant tissues in stems and roots, and English botanist Nehemiah Grew, who more accurately described the structure of wood than anyone had ever done before.
  • Plant Physiology
      This field was first established by Johann Baptista van Helmont, Belgian physician and chemist, who is sometimes credited with being the earliest Father of Western Medicine. He was the first to establish that plants do not have the same nutritional needs as animals. (His most famous botanical experiment was that of planting a willow twig in a tub of soil, and meticulously monitoring its growth. At the end of his experiment, he noted that the willow had gained 164 pounds, and attributed it to water it had absorbed. We know now that most of the biomass gained was due to photosynthesis...but you have to give him credit for early plant physiology experimentation.)
  • Plant Taxonomy
      The earliest plant taxonomist was Carl Linne himself. All his described species still bear his stamp:

      Raphanus sativus L.
    More modern study of plants has evolved from these early disciplines:
    • Plant Genetics and Biotechnology
    • Plant Biochemistry
    • Biomedical Botany (Ethnobotany)
    • Plant Biogeography
    • Ecology
    The study plants is a vital, active field in almost every area of biology. In 1938, 11,000 papers on botanical subjects were published, and the number has grown every year since then.

    Perhaps no area is so pressing as the Ecological Connection.

    To set the tone for our tour through the Mighty Kingdom Plantae, I present an Academy Award Winner for Best Animated Film (1987). Though it is fiction, it accurately depicts what can happen when plants are destroyed in a large area of land...and what can happen when they come back.

    The Man Who Planted Trees


    a film by Frederic Back from a story by Jean Giono