mgryan@fs.fed.us

Course Description
Designed for graduate students in natural resources who desire an understanding of how woody plants function, respond to, and alter their environment. Lecture topics include: the environment of plants, carbon metabolism and carbon balance, nutrition, water balance, interactions of carbon, water, nutrition, tree growth and senescence, and stress. The unique properties of woody plants are emphasized, and the course emphasizes developing skills to solve quantitative and conceptual problems.

Prerequisites
B440, Plant physiology. Undergraduate inorganic chemistry, physics, and calculus would aid the student.

Course Objectives
· Understand the fundamentals of plant ecophysiology and be able to apply those concepts to trees.
· Be able to analyze and interpret ecophysiological data.
· Become familiar with current literature in plant ecophysiology.

Grades
Exercises/reports - 30%
Mid-term Exam - 35%
Final Exam - 35%

Office Hours
By arrangement.

Texts/Readings
No required text. Other readings from the current literature or different texts will be distributed in class or on the web.

Readings/Discussion
Each student will be required to select an interesting, ecophysiological paper (s)-could present two papers on both sides of an issue. Student will be responsible for presenting the basic findings of the paper (15 minutes), then leading a 30 minute discussion on the strengths/weaknesses/larger implications of the paper.

Topics
Radiation, photosynthesis, respiration, translocation, carbon balance and allocation, water: uptake, transport, storage, plant mechanisms of drought tolerance and avoidance, scaling/extrapolating ecophysiological measurements, life cycle-age-related decline and height limitation in trees, measurements: flux measurements with eddy covariance, leaf and tree level measurements, stable isotopes in tree ecophysiology, roots and mycorrhizae, nitrogen metabolism.

Exercises

LI-6400, flux and environmental data analysis, modeling/scaling/extrapolating

Supplementary Texts

Pearcy et al. 1991. Plant physiological ecology. Field methods and instrumentation. Chapman and Hall. The ' Pink Book'. This is my reference for the instrumentation of plant ecophysiology.

Hall et al. 1993. Photosynthesis and production in a changing environment. A field and laboratory manual. Another good reference on methods.

Campbell and Norman. 1998. An introduction to environmental biophysics, 2nd edition. My 'bible' for Environmental Physics.

Nobel. 1991. Physicochemical and environmental plant physiology. Academic Press. A good, if somewhat dense, book that mixes environmental physics and ecophysiology.

Jones, H.G. 1992. Plants and microclimate: a quantitative approach to environmental plant physiology, 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press. Outstanding reference for plant-environment interactions.

Gartner. 1995. Plant stems, physiology and functional morphology. Academic Press. A good synthesis of how woody stems play a role in woody-plant ecophysiology.

Smith and Hinckley. 1995. Resource physiology of conifers: acquisition, allocation, and utilization. Academic Press.
Smith and Hinckley. 1995. Ecophysiology of coniferous forests. Academic Press. These two books give an excellent synthesis of many of the current topics in ecophysiology of conifers.

Taiz and Zeiger, Plant physiology. Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co., 1991. Recommended for students who need review on basic plant physiology.

Landsberg, J.J. Physiological Ecology of Forest Production. 1986. Academic Press. Succinct and comprehensive.

Boyer, John. S. Measuring the water status of plants and soils. 1995. Academic Press. Great book on techniques and how and why they work.

Waring, R.H. and Running. Forest Ecosystems, 2nd edition. 1998. Academic Press. Great summary of what's important about tree physiology at the ecosystem scale.