Australian Society of Plant Scientists

Plants in Action

Cover of Plants in Action

Plants in Action Adaptation in Nature — Performance in Cultivation edited by Brian Atwell, Paul Kriedemann & Colin Turnbull

Textbook and Teaching Kit (CD-ROM) available

Textbook

Plants in Action is a lavishly illustrated textbook, written and edited by members of the Australian and New Zealand Societies of Plant Physiologists and Horticulture Societies. This textbook was published in 1999 by Macmillan Education Australia Pty Ltd, and won the Australian Publishers Award for the best tertiary textbook for 1999 in competition with all other tertiary texts published in Australia that year. The judges were especially complimentary about subject coverage, high quality illustrations, and a clarity of prose conducive to easy reading.

Plants in Action explores basic principles underlying plant biology in natural and managed communities throughout Australasia. By providing up-to-date and useful perspectives on plant science, this book will appeal immediately to upper level undergraduates in Universities and tertiary Institutes of Technology where plant physiology forms part of their degree coursework in Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry and Environmental Sciences. Postgraduate students as well as professional plant scientists will also find much useful source material in this textbook because the narrative is built on credible experiments and richly illustrated with original data. Numerous vignettes provide a human background to new knowledge that is readily transparent and structured for easy 'grazing'.

In both name and actuality, Plants in Action embodies practical applications of plant science in nature and global commerce. World markets are already crowded with high quality texts on plant physiology. Basic principles are thus well covered, but neither application of principles, nor acknowledgment of Australasian contributions to plant science is well covered in texts from the northern hemisphere. Where practical, but without jingoism, Australasian examples and case studies are used to illustrate original science as well as practical applications of that science; hence the subtitle: Adaptation in Nature, and Performance in Cultivation.

Textbooks can be purchased direct from Macmillan Academic and Reference for $84.22 Hb (plus postage and handling; rates negotiable for bulk orders). ISBN 0–7329–4439–2

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Sample images from Plants in Action

Cluster roots in Banksia serrata growing on Hawkesbury Sandstone hillslopes in the Sydney region.
(a) Roots that have grown across a dead eucalypt leaf extract nutrients remaining in the decaying leaf.
(b) Clusters of fine rootlets at the tips of roots increase the surface area for nutrient extraction from surrounding soil.
Scale bar = 100 microns

Resurrection plants, such as the grass Sporobolus stapfianus, are species with remarkable adaptations to enable survival through extended and severe droughts. Although leaves of droughted plants become almost totally desiccated, recovery of full leaf function takes a matter of hours following resupply of water. Underlying changes in patterns of gene expression enable this survival strategy, and have some analogies with processes during seed maturation.

Here, mRNA abundance is plotted for two genes, one upregulated and one downregulated in response to dehydration. Dehydrins (green bars) are hydrophilic proteins which probably protect cellular components from damage under conditions of low water status. Chlorophyll a/b binding protein (Cab) is a core component of photosynthetic function. Expression of Cab (white bars) declines rapidly during dehydration, and indicates the shutting down of photosynthesis.

Both these genes are also responsive to ABA supplied to fully hydrated plants, so this hormone probably plays a key role in meditating the stress response. However, there are other dehydration-induced genes which are not affected by ABA.

Photoassimilate moves from mature leaves of peach (a) and apricot (b) into the pericarp of maturing fruits nearby. ¹⁴CO was administered for about an hour to source leaves (boxed area top left side in (a) and (b)) and movement of ¹⁴C-labelled photoassimilates over the subsequent 24 h was traced by autoradiography of harvested material (right side a and b). Intense labelling of source leaves indicates a high level of residual activity, but strong incorporation of ¹⁴C photoassimilates into the pericarp of adjacent fruits is also evident. Endocarp tissues had hardened and failed to import current photosynthate, although seeds developing inside the endocarp did become labelled.

(Based on Kriedemann 1968)

Leaf burn on own-rooted sultana grapevines (syn. Thompson Seedless) at the end of a growing season at NSW Agriculture Dareton and irrigated with salinised (12mM NaCl) irrigation water. Vines correspond to those described by Prior et al (1992).

(Photograph courtesy P.E. Kriedemann)

A dense stand of swamp paperbark (Melaleuca halmaturorum var. halmaturorum F. Muel. wx Miq.) showing trees growing in Bool Lagoon, South Australia, together with other hydrophytes. All root systems are totally inundated.

(Photograph courtesy Department of Environment, Heritage and Aboriginal Affairs, South Australia)

Pathways of starch metabolism. Numbers refer to the following enzymes: 1, beta-amylase; 2, alpha-amylase; 3, starch phosphorylase; 4, glucosidase; 5, hexose kinase; 6, phosploglucomutase; 7, glucose 6-phosphate isomerase

(Original drawing courtesy David Day)

Turgor pressure (P) in a Tradescantia virginiana epidermal cell as a function of time after the external osmotic pressure was changed with different test solutes. Measurements were made with a pressure probe. The initial decrease in P is due to water flow out of the cell and is larger for solutes with a reflection coefficient near one (sucrose and urea). Propanol induces no drop in P, indicating that its reflection coeffecient is zero. Subsequent increase in P is due to penetration of particular solutes such as alcohol across the cell membrane. Water flows osmotically with the solute thereby increasing P to its original value. Removing solutes reverses osmotic effects. That is, a decrease in P follows the initial inflow of water as solutes (e.g. alcohols) diffuse out of cells.

(Tyerman and Steudle 1982; reproduced with permission of CSIRO)

Cell walls, planes of cell division and the form of a plant body are illustrated in genera of green algae. (A) Colony of Eudorina. The constituent cells are embedded in a gelatinous matrix. At the end of cell division daughter cells separate from one another. (B) This shows what happens when division is always in one plane. Sharing of new cross-walls by daughter cells causes them to adhere to one another. The arrow indicates a cell that was about to divide. (C) A vital new feature — the ability to change the plane of division generates branching systems of adherent cells (Stigeoclonium, low and high magnification views).

(Micrographs courtesy B.E.S. Gunning)