Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 64, No. 13, p. 4021, 2013 doi:10.1093/jxb/ert252 Advance Access publication 4 September, 2013
Preface Evolution of physiological processes
Colin P. Osborne University of Sheffield
© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected]
Downloaded from http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/ at D H Hill Library - Acquis S on March 29, 2015
There is much to be excited about in the field of plant environmental physiology, as new insights catalyze our understanding of the global patterns and environmental interactions of physiological processes. It is now clear that life is not simply a passenger on Earth, but that evolutionary innovations in physiological processes have transformed the planetary environment. Microbial physiology turns the biogeochemical cycles of essential elements, and terrestrial plants mediate atmospheric composition and climate on geological to intra-annual timescales. Environmental change and spatial environmental gradients in turn drive the diversity of plant form and function, mediated by critical interactions between physiological processes and the abiotic environment. Recent years have seen important new insights in this area, including a greater appreciation of the processes underpinning leaf diversity in morphology and physiology, and of the major functional significance of symbioses between plants and soil microbes. Finally, we are gaining an increased understanding of crop evolution in functional terms, with new work revealing how interactions between plants and their environment shaped the domestication process. This thematic section has been put together by Plant Environmental Physiology group of the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) to showcase some of the exciting advances in the field of evolutionary physiology, and to pick up a number of key emerging themes. John Raven surveys the diversity of autotrophic processes, and investigates the phosphorus demands of alternative autotrophic lifestyles. Erika Edwards and Michael Donoghue present a new theoretical framework for understanding whether it is easier for a plant to migrate or evolve when confronted with a new abiotic environment. Lawren Sack et al. look at leaf diversity, dissecting the proposed association between hydraulic traits and structural-photosynthetic traits. Two more papers elaborate upon these leaf trait spectra: Adam Roddy et al. ask whether there is an association between the hydraulic traits of leaves and of flowers, and Chase Mason et al. show that structural–photosynthetic trait relationships shift during ontogeny. Finally, Thomas Kluyver et al. look at whether seed survival of burial can explain how seed size evolved during the domestication of crop plants. These articles offer a diverse and stimulating perspective on a developing field, and I thank the authors for their contributions.
Preface Evolution of physiological processes
Colin P. Osborne University of Sheffield
© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected]
Downloaded from http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/ at D H Hill Library - Acquis S on March 29, 2015
There is much to be excited about in the field of plant environmental physiology, as new insights catalyze our understanding of the global patterns and environmental interactions of physiological processes. It is now clear that life is not simply a passenger on Earth, but that evolutionary innovations in physiological processes have transformed the planetary environment. Microbial physiology turns the biogeochemical cycles of essential elements, and terrestrial plants mediate atmospheric composition and climate on geological to intra-annual timescales. Environmental change and spatial environmental gradients in turn drive the diversity of plant form and function, mediated by critical interactions between physiological processes and the abiotic environment. Recent years have seen important new insights in this area, including a greater appreciation of the processes underpinning leaf diversity in morphology and physiology, and of the major functional significance of symbioses between plants and soil microbes. Finally, we are gaining an increased understanding of crop evolution in functional terms, with new work revealing how interactions between plants and their environment shaped the domestication process. This thematic section has been put together by Plant Environmental Physiology group of the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) to showcase some of the exciting advances in the field of evolutionary physiology, and to pick up a number of key emerging themes. John Raven surveys the diversity of autotrophic processes, and investigates the phosphorus demands of alternative autotrophic lifestyles. Erika Edwards and Michael Donoghue present a new theoretical framework for understanding whether it is easier for a plant to migrate or evolve when confronted with a new abiotic environment. Lawren Sack et al. look at leaf diversity, dissecting the proposed association between hydraulic traits and structural-photosynthetic traits. Two more papers elaborate upon these leaf trait spectra: Adam Roddy et al. ask whether there is an association between the hydraulic traits of leaves and of flowers, and Chase Mason et al. show that structural–photosynthetic trait relationships shift during ontogeny. Finally, Thomas Kluyver et al. look at whether seed survival of burial can explain how seed size evolved during the domestication of crop plants. These articles offer a diverse and stimulating perspective on a developing field, and I thank the authors for their contributions.
