discover the biological sciences

Discover the Biological Sciences

The introductory information for this site has been contributed as a joint assignment by students in Bio. Sci. 10.

Botany - Plant Physiology

By: Jeffrey Worthington

1) Biological field or sub-topic chosen:
Physiology

2) Define field or sub-topic:
Subfield of botany; the function of plants.

3) Describe in more detail the breath and depth of what could be studied or learned within this topic:

Well in this field there is plant development, reproductive control, dormancy, seasonality, diffusion of water and nutrients just to name a few things that can be studied in this field.

4) Focusing on one major concept, principle, or group of organisms (as appropriate within the topic), describe its importance, relationships, functional aspects, or otherwise explain it in more depth as seems important to you and (potentially) the others in class:

Phytochemisty (the study of chemicals in the plant) which has led to the genetically enhanced apples, the knowledge of how to better pollinate fruits, vegetables, and floral plants; to modify DNA structure to make different colored flowers, extracting trace amounts of drugs out of plants for pharmaceutical uses, and plethora of other things that we take for granted in today’s agricultural, pharmaceutical, and floral world.

5) In studying and discovering more about this topic, what was the most interesting aspect, fact or some other piece of information that you have learned.

The amount of effort that is being put into the commercial floral industry is astounding. In 2004, after 20 years of research a company by the name Florigene created a rose that was truly blue.

6) References – provide references used and at least two Web sites with additional information on this topic (or sub-topic) for anyone that would like to learn more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/plant_physioloy
www.plantphysiol.org/
http://4e.plantphys.net

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