About this book
Climatic conditions are key determinants of plant growth, whether at the scale of temperature regulation of the cell cycle, or at the scale of the geographic limits for a particular species. The climate is changing, due to human activities - particularly the emission of greenhouse gases - and therefore the conditions for the establishment, growth, reproduction, survival and distribution of plant species are changing.
This volume explores plant growth and anthropogenic climate change, considering the effects of ecology on physiology, and agricultural as well as wider vegetation science. It focuses on the features of climate that are important to plants, emphasising aspects of temporal pattern, seasonality and extremes. Individual chapters discuss the mechanisms underlying physiological and ecological responses to the key variables in climate change - in particular, changing plant function over time (acclimation) and also between species (adaptation), functional types and growth forms. The complexities of these interactions are illustrated with reviews of recent experimental manipulations of plants at the community level in a wide range of environments, and the roles and limitations of the models widely used to predict plant growth and productivity from climate information are examined.
Contents
List of Contributors Preface 1. Recent and future climate change and its implications for plant growthDavid Viner, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, James I.L. Morison, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, UK and Craig Wallace, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK 2. Plant responses to rising atmospheric carbon dioxideLewis H. Ziska and James A. Bunce, Crop Systems and Global Change, USDA-ARS, Beltsville, Maryland, USA 3. The significance of temperature in plant lifeChristian Korner, Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland 4. Temperature and plant development: phenology and seasonalityAnnette Menzel, Department of Ecology, Technical University of Munich, Germany and Tim Sparks, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Huntingdon, UK 5. Responses of plant growth and functioning to changes in water supply in a changing climateWilliam J. Davies, Department of Biological Sciences, Lancaster Environment Centre, University of Lancaster, UK 6. Water availability and productivityJoao S. Pereira, Maria-Manuela Chaves, Maria-Conceicao Caldeira and Alexandre V. Correia,m Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Lisboa, Portugal 7. Effects of temperature and precipitation changes on plant communitiesM. D. Morecroft, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK and J.S. Paterson, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Oxford, UK 8. Issues in modelling plant ecosystem responses to elevated CO2: interactions with soil nitrogenYing-Ping Wang, CSIRO Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia and Ross McMurtrie, Belinda Medlyn and David Pepper, School of Biological Sciences, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 9. Predicting the effect of climate change on global plant productivity and the carbon cycleJohn Grace & Rui Zhang, Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental Science, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, UK References Index
Customer Reviews
Biography
Dr James Morison, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, UK Dr Michael Morecroft, NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, UK
