Structure-Function Relations of Warm Desert Plants

✍ Scribed by Dr. Arthur Charles Gibson (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 222
• Series: Adaptations of Desert Organisms
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

For centuries biologists have been extremely interested in the structure of desert plants as examples of natural selection to harsh environmental conditions. Indeed, desert plants are frequently used as examples in many biology classes and textbooks to illustrate natural selection, but this has led to an unfortunate litany of errors and misconceptions about desert plant adaptations.
This new synthesis focuses on plants of lowland tropical and subtropical arid deserts. Readers will be surprised to discover that many features commonly ascribed to desert plants are rareley observed in the most common species. Instead, the typical structural adaptations of nonsucculent warm desert plants are now viewed as ways to maximize photosynthetic rate.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages I-XI
Plant Life Forms of Warm Desert Climates....Pages 1-22
Functional Morphology of Nonsucculent Leaves....Pages 23-43
Physiological Anatomy of Nonsucculent Leaves....Pages 45-89
Photosynthetic Stems of Nonsucculent Plants....Pages 91-116
Succulent Photosynthetic Organs....Pages 117-142
Special Topics in Water Relations....Pages 143-168
Origins of Desert Structural Adaptations....Pages 169-175
Back Matter....Pages 177-215

✦ Subjects

Ecology; Plant Sciences