Biol/Envs 160 – Plants Taught by Stuart Allison Winter 2013
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Transcript of Biol/Envs 160 – Plants Taught by Stuart Allison Winter 2013
Biol/Envs 160 – Plants
Taught by Stuart Allison
Winter 2013
http://courses.knox.edu/bio160/
What is botany?
Botany is the branch of biology concerned with the study of plants – it is a very old science
Theophrastus – 370-285 BCE
Botanic garden at University of Padua Medical School – 16th Century Illustration
Subfields of Botany• Plant molecular biology – study of molecular and submolecular
processes carried out by plants – much focus on photosynthesis as unique to plants
• Plant physiology – study of how plants capture and transform energy and how they grow and develop
• Plant cytology – study of cell structure, function, and cell life history
• Plant morphology – study of the form of plants• Plant anatomy – study of the internal structure of plants• Plant classification – may also be called taxonomy or
systematics – how plants are evolutionarily classified and named
Subfields of Botany cont’d
• Plant genetics – study of heredity and variation
• Ecology – study of relationships between organisms and their environment – plant ecology focuses on relationships of plants to their environment
• Paleobotany – study of biology and evolution of fossil plants
• Economic botany – study of the uses of plants by people
• Ethnobotany – study of traditional uses of plants by various groups of people
• Agronomy – study of soil management and raising crops
Plants are:
• multicellular, eukaryotes (organisms with a nucleus and subcellular organelles), with cellulose cell walls, almost all plants are capable of carrying out photosynthesis using chlorophyll b and carotene pigments
Plants first evolved on land
• Plants originated on land and many of the adaptations that make them plants arose as a response to life on land – today we recognize four main groups of land plants – about 280,000 species
Four main groups of land plants
• bryophytes – true mosses, hornworts, and liverworts
• pteridophytes – ferns, club mosses, horsetails• gymnosperms – seed plants with a “naked”
seed – conifers, cycads, ginkgos, and gnetophytes
• angiosperms – seed plants with a “covered” or “vessel” seed – the flowering plants
Mosses - Bryophyta
Bracken Fern - Pteridophyte
Sword Fern Sori
Equisetum – Common Horsetail - Pteridophyte
Lycopodium – Big Club Moss - Pteridophyte
Gymnosperm - Ponderosa Pine
Cycad – Sago-Palm - Gymnosperm
Gingko biloba - Gymnosperm
Gnetophyta – Ephedra –Mormon tea - Gymnosperm
Gnetophyta –Welwitschia - Gymnosperm
Rosa californica – Angiosperm
Columbia Lily – Angiosperm
Plants:
• are the base of food chains for almost all life on earth
• modify the atmosphere by releasing oxygen
• store tremendous amounts of carbon in their bodies
• Thus knowledge of plants is essential as we deal with environmental problems
Plants:• constitute the structure of our landscapes
• help form soils
• shelter animals
• control local climates
• refresh the atmosphere,
• and are even capable of cleaning up some pollutants.
• Plants are able to do all of those things because they are so fundamentally different from animals.
“An appreciation of plants is the sign of a superior intellect.”
Plant generations can cross thousands of years
Methuselah – a Judean Date Palm
Arctic lupine
Plants have one major limitation
Mycorrhizae – association between a plant root and fungi
Pollination
Coevolution
• where two or more species evolve in concert with each other so that as one changes, the other changes in response to that change
• “In a broad sense, biological coevolution is ‘the change of a biological object triggered by the change of a related object’.”
• “Coevolution does not imply mutual dependence. The host of a parasite, or prey of a predator, does not depend on its enemy for survival.”
» Quotes from Wikipedia
Human-Dog Coevolution
Human-Dog Coevolution
Apple – desire for sweetness
The sweetest fruit?
Detail from ‘The Fall of Man’ by Goltzius
Tulip – desire for beauty
Cannabis – desire for intoxication
Potato – desire for control