ISBN-13: 9783659243097 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 224 str.
This book is story of the search to discover the biological basis of seed behavior in the weedy Setaria species-group. It consists of three sections: the regulatory role of seed compartments, the functional traits responsible for behavior, and the soil environmental signals cueing seed germinability. In the first section, emergent behaviors are seen as a consequence of seed compartmentalized structure. In the second section, the morpho-physiological traits responsible for seed regulation are presented. The role of the seed hull as biological 'antenna' of soil signals is elucidated. In the third section, the complex environmental signal in the soil is defined in terms of seed behavior rules and quantitative prediction algorithms regulating germinability behavior. The conclusion of this work is that weedy Setaria spp.-gp. seed life history behavior in soil seed pools is an emergent property of seed structure and physiology interacting with the amount of oxygen dissolved in water (oxy-hydro signal) that accumulates in the seed symplast, and temperatures favorable (or not) to germination growth (germination heat signal), over some time period (cumulatively oxy-hydo-thermal time).