A Functional Biology of Crop Plants [Paperback]

1. Functional Biology and Plant Strategies.- A. Functional Biology.- B. The Requirements on Plants in Their Growth and Function.- C. The Abiotic Environment: Plant Autecology.- (i) Resources.- (ii)Resource Challenges Faced by Plants.- D. Adaptive Strategies.- (i) Utility of the Strategic View.- (ii) Explaining Adaptations, in Kind and in Magnitude, Primarily in Wild Growth.- (iii) Indicating Routes to Crop Improvement.- (iv) Examples of Objective Functions and Adaptations.- E. Four Principles of Adaptive Strategies.- F. The Calculation of Energetic Costs and Benefits.- (i) Three Types of Costs.- (ii) How Energy Costs Affect Growth and Yield.- (iii) Optimizing the Energetics of a Plant.- G. Toward a Quantification of Risk and Risk Management.- H. When and How Fast to Deploy Strategies.- I. Effectiveness and Limitations of Strategic Adaptations.- (i) Internal and External Limitations.- (ii) Limitations to Adaptive Strategies.- J. Additional Strategic Considerations for the Biotic Environment.- 2. Mineral Nutrition.- A. Essential Elements in the Ecosystem and Their Availability to Plants.- (i) Energetic Costs of Acquiring Nutrients.- (ii) Soil Processes.- B. Four Types of Challenges.- (i) Low Nutrient Availability in Soil.- (ii) Physiological Limitations on Internal Transport and Use.- (iii) Severe Imbalances Among Nutrients.- (iv) Toxicity of Nonnutrients.- C. Consequences of Nutritional Challenges.- (i) General and Ecological Challenges.- (ii) Agricultural Consequences.- D. Adaptive Responses, Their Costs and Benefits.- (i) Autecological Responses.- (ii) Responses Within Plant Communities.- 3. Photosynthesis.- A. CO2, Photons, and Their Availability to the Plant.- (i) The Basic Photosynthetic Reaction and Its Constraints.- (ii) CO2 and Water Exchange.- (iii) CO2 and Photon Transport in Whole Canopies.- (iv) Measures of Photosynthesis.- (v) Net Determinants of Photosynthesis.- B. Energy and Soil Resource Uses: Costs and Benefits.- (i) Costs and Benefits in Photosynthel£1