The topic of fruit and seed production is given a broad and comprehensive treatment, with chapters covering the onset of flowering through to the development and growth of fruits and seeds, and finally to ecological and evolutionary aspects of fruiting.

Winds over topography and inside forests produce mechanical reactions in trees, and eventually failure in stems and roots when stressed by storms. The mechanics of these reactions and the physiological responses to wind in leaves, stems and root systems, and the important ecological consequences of wind-throw are described in this book. Management techniques of forests in windy climates are detailed, including the use of models predicting risk of wind damage. It is clear that the whole field of wind effects on trees has benefited from recent multi-disciplinary research, and significant...

Bringing together leading researchers from around the world this book reviews how vegetation and soils act as naturally occurring buffers which use up the gases responsible for global warming and the greenhouse effect. It provides in-depth information on the importance of these sinks, how they may respond to increased greenhouse gas emissions, how we can protect them and how they can help us mitigate climate change.

A comprehensive treatment of the environmental physiology and ecology of fruit and seed production in higher plants.

The prospect of future climate change has stimulated research into the physiological responses of plants to stress. Water is a key factor controlling the distribution and abundance of plants in nature and the efficient uptake and subsequent transport of water within the plant is critical in hot, dry regions. This book, based on a meeting which focused on the failure of the hydraulic pathway within the xylem, brings together contributions from a range of experts who have worked on the cavitation of water in the transport system. The phenomenon of cavitation, discovered only in the 1960s, is...

In this small book I have tried to confine myself to the absolute necessities in a field which requires a knowledge of both biology and physics. It is meant as a primer for biological undergraduates. I hope it will lead some of them to further, more advanced, study. It has not been easy to present the subject in so few pages, and I am aware of many omissions. I hope readers will agree that it is best to concentrate on a small number of topics, which together constitute an essay on plant-atmosphere relationships. Advanced students will be able to take the subject further if they look up some...