Physiological Plant Ecology IV

This book discusses plant invasions and environmental impacts on the Himalayas through a novel procedure, and helps to understand the influences of climate, physiography, soil, and disturbance on plant richness in mountain systems. Assessing invasion risks to mountain space under future climate change scenarios is highly significant for appropriate preparedness, and this book details analytical and modeling techniques to assess the conditions of mountain ecosystem and ecology to better inform our preparation for future environmental challenges.

This book discusses plant invasions and environmental impacts on the Himalayas through a novel procedure, and helps to understand the influences of climate, physiography, soil, and disturbance on plant richness in mountain systems. Assessing invasion risks to mountain space under future climate change scenarios is highly significant for appropriate preparedness, and this book details analytical and modeling techniques to assess the conditions of mountain ecosystem and ecology to better inform our preparation for future environmental challenges.

This book provides information about plant–environment studies and challenges for plant improvement to achieve food security. Plants face a wide range of environmental challenges, which are expected to become more intense as a result of global climate change. Plant–environment interactions play an important role in the functioning of ecosystems. There are habitats throughout the world that present challenges to crop plants, such as through a lack of water and excessive, or toxic, salts in the soil. Soil properties represent a strong selection pressure for plant diversity and influence the structure of plant communities and participate to the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. Plant communities selected by environment grow by modifying soil physical, chemical, and biological properties, with consequent effects on survival and growth of plants. The complexity of plant–environment interactions has recently been studied by developing a trait-based approach in which responses and effects of plants on environment were quantified and modeled. This fundamental research on plant–environment interaction in ecosystems is essential to transpose knowledges of functional ecology to environmental management.

This book introduces ecology of tropical cloud forests in China, a high-altitudinal tropical forest. The findings are novel in revealing environmental characteristics, community features, diversity patterns, plant strategies, community assembly mechanisms, and diversity-ecosystem functions of tropical cloud forests in China. The knowledge of this book will bridge the gaps of our understanding on the tropical forest in China and the world-wide, and will enrich the theory of tropical forest community ecology.

Flowering plants dominate much of the Earth's surface and yet, as sessile organisms, they must constantly resist attack by numerous voracious herbivores. Survival in the face of an abundance of insect predators relies on sophisticated resistance systems allowing plants to escape from herbivory in time or in space, to confront herbivores directly, or to fight them indirectly by remarkable collaborations with other species.

The book provides currently available information on the changing climate and its impact on functional and adaptive features of plants. The book also cover cutting edge research on key determinants of plant growth