Abstract
One of the main aims of current research in physiological ecology is to investigate and causally interpret the photosynthetic productivity of plants and of plant communities in different habitats. Efforts have been made to develop mathematical models to compute the net fixation of CO2 by plants from meteorological parameters and to predict their productivity (e.g., Lommen et al, 1971; Chapter 4, by Hall and Björkman). One basic requirement for the realization of such models is a detailed knowledge of the functional relationships between the photosynthetic efficiency of a plant and the external conditions characteristic for its particular habitat. Special attention must be paid to the responses of the different morphological types, considering the variability of their physiological state and their capacity for regulative adaptations. The more sophisticated models recently proposed have made apparent large gaps in our knowledge about the influence of important internal and external factors on the CO2 exchange of plants. Therefore, during our work on productivity and water relations of desert plants, we first focused our interest on a functional analysis of the photosynthetic responses of the plants in their natural habitat, using two approaches. On the one hand, we investigated net photosynthesis and transpiration in relation to the natural conditions in which the different plant types were growing. On the other, we analyzed the importance of single environmental factors by carrying out experiments under artificially changed conditions in the field.
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Lange, O.L., Schulze, ED., Kappen, L., Buschbom, U., Evenari, M. (1975). Photosynthesis of Desert Plants As Influenced by Internal and External Factors. In: Gates, D.M., Schmerl, R.B. (eds) Perspectives of Biophysical Ecology. Ecological Studies, vol 12. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87810-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87810-7_8
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