Physiology and behaviour of plants
Physiology and behaviour of plantsP. Scott
2008
Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. £32.50 (paperback).
305 pp.
In addition to an intense interest in plants and their biology, readers of Annals of Botany will, hopefully, also be keen to ensure that a sizeable new generation will take up the challenge of plant research. Unfortunately, that ambition is being increasingly thwarted by the economics and politics of higher education, where animal and biomedical/forensic courses tend to dominate over plant biology. In part, this regrettable situation may be attributed to a perception that plants are dull and their study lacks dynamism and a modern twist. Although such a view is misguided, it is not helped by the textbooks typically and traditionally used to teach plant biology to university undergraduates. Well, I believe that Scott's Physiology and behaviour of plants (yes, behaviour of plants!) will help to change that attitude and recruit more good students to the cause of botanical research. It certainly gave me grounds for optimism.
The book comprises the following: Introducing plants (14 pages); Photosynthesis the ultimate in autotrophy (25 pages); Non-photosynthetic metabolism (17 pages); Roots and the uptake of water (14 pages); Mineral nutrition of plants (14 pages); Mycorrhizal associations and saprophytic nutrition (14 pages); Parasitic plants (12 pages); Carnivorous plants (16 pages); Asexual and sexual reproduction (17 pages); Plant growth (12 pages); Plant movement (14 pages); Plants and stress (17 pages); Plant senses and perceiving the world (17 pages); Seed dispersal, dormancy and germination (14 pages); Interactions with the animal kingdom (13 pages); Plant defences (17 pages); Plants and medicines (12 pages); Plant tissue culture and the rise of plant biotechnology (14 pages); Remarkable plants (14 pages); Glossary (3 pages); Index (5 pages). The book's focus is on flowering plants (although this is not made explicit until page 7 of the first chapter) and is as up-to-date as you'd expect in a 21st century text; Arabidopsis thaliana gets plenty of coverage. Molecules are mentioned, as is biology, but there is little of the top-heavy molecular biology that can mar other plant biology texts.
In trying to summarize what is new and different (and exciting) about this book, I can do no better than repeat the publisher's publicity statement: ‘Physiology and behaviour of plants looks at plants and how they sense and respond to their environment. It takes the traditional plant physiology book into a new dimension by demonstrating how biochemical observations underlie the behaviour of the plant. In many ways the book parallels courses studied at university on animal physiology and behaviour. The plant has to meet the same challenges as an animal to survive, but overcomes these challenges in very different ways. Students learn to think of plants not only as dynamic organisms, but aggressive, territorial organisms capable of long-range communication’.
There is more on sink tissues (9 pages) and carnivorous plants (18 pages) than one might expect in an undergraduate text. But this is defensible because of the importance of plants to human nutrition, and their inherent interest (respectively), and their hefty inclusion serves to demonstrate why this textbook is different – and welcome. The book has developed from a course that the author has successfully taught at the University of Sussex, UK, for several years. This pedigree is evident in the book's pedagogy [elegantly exemplified in Scott's reasoning for discussing sink (t)issues: ‘How carbohydrates are moved around plants is a very important area of research, because humans consume very few leaf crops’].
Reference lists complete each chapter; whilst they are never intimidatingly long, they do include some that seem unusual in a textbook, e.g. Fitter et al. (1991) and Madson (1996). There is nothing wrong in being different, but I have doubts about the value of references such as Dixon and Joly (1894), Gallaud (1905) and Boysen-Jensen (1913). How readily available are these? Do we really expect students to read them? In contrast, only two review articles from Trends in Plant Science and three from Annual Review of Plant Physiology/Biology are listed. Intriguingly, there are no references to the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences released by the same publisher as the book, whereas at least three of Charles Darwin's books are listed.
I applaud the use of colour throughout (although even I wonder if it gets a bit too much at times). I'm also impressed by the ‘time lapse stills’ showing plants in action, e.g. Fig. 11·14 showing runner bean circumnutation. But I am surprised to find no electron micrographs illustrating sub-cellular features; instead we only have a schematic diagram (Fig. 1·14) to illustrate the differences between animal and plant cells. This first version of the book is not perfect and I noted some ‘errors’. For example, scale bars would help to understand Fig. 15·15A (I thought the picture was of red currants until I saw the legend stating they were tomatoes). Other small mistakes include Antarctica being wrongly spelt in Table 1·3 and an irritating shadowing on the text of Fig. 2·13. There are also inconsistencies in font size and style between many of the diagrams, while the number of flowering plant species fluctuates dramatically between 260 000 (page 5) and 235 000 (Table 1·1). However, these matters will be easily corrected in any future revised edition(s). These quibbles notwithstanding, Physiology and behaviour is a welcome change from the more staid, traditional plant biology texts. Don't get me wrong, many ‘old ones’ do their job well but I believe Scott's approach is a notable improvement. And if it encourages more students to study plants then that will be a tremendous achievement. From a teaching point of view, each chapter is a lecture and should help to make this text an ideal accompaniment to a modern plant biology course.
As a distinctively focused text it deserves to be widely bought and used in undergraduate plant biology courses – maybe alongside more traditional texts. Its price and topicality should help to ensure that it is. Peter Scott is to be congratulated on producing such a refreshingly different plant biology textbook. This is a book written by an author who evidently loves plants and is eager to share that awe, respect and wonder with the next generation. More power to him!
E-mail n.chaffey{at}bathspa.ac.uk
LITERATURE CITED
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Boysen-Jensen P. Uber die Leitung des phototropischen Reizes in der Avenakoleoptile. Berichte des Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft (1913) 31:559–566.
Dixon HH, Joly J. On the ascent of sap. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B (1894) 186:563–576.
Fitter R, Fitter A, Blamey M. The wild flowers of Britain and Northern Europe. (1991) London: Collins.
Gallaud I. Études sur les mycorrhizes endophytes. Revue General de Botanique (1905) 17:5–48. 66–83, 123–136, 223–239, 313–325, 425–433, 479–500.
Madson C. Trees born of fire and ice. National Wildlife (1996) 34:28–35.
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