Physiology
Further information: AutotrophPlant physiology encompasses all the internal chemical and physical activities of plants associated with life. Sunlight, either through photosynthesis or cellular respiration, is the basis of all life. Photoautotrophs gather energy directly from sunlight. This includes all green plants, cyanobacteria and other bacteria that can photosynthesize. Heterotrophs take in organic molecules and respire them. This includes all animals, all fungi, all completely parasitic plants, and non-photosynthetic bacteria. Respiration is the oxidation of carbon whereby it is broken down into simpler structures; essentially the opposite of photosynthesis.
Transport processes are those by which molecules are moved within the organism, such as: membranes transporting material across themselves and enzymes moving electrons. This is how minerals and water get from roots to other parts of the plant. Diffusion, osmosis, and active transport are different ways transport can occur. Examples of elements that plants need are: nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, and sulphur. Chemicals from the air, soil, and water in combination with sunlight form the basis of plant metabolism. Most of these elements come from minerals in a process called mineral nutrition. Few plants live in stable unchanging environments. Most plants must adapt to a variety of environmental factors, including changes in temperature, light and moisture. The better a plant can cope with these changing conditions, the more likely it is to be able to survive over both the short and long term as well as establish itself over a wider geographic range.
Read more about this topic: Botany
Famous quotes containing the word physiology:
“The world moves, but we seem to move with it. When I studied physiology before ... there were two hundred and eight bones in the body. Now there are two hundred and thirty- eight.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)
“If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they’d realise that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)
“A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)