Plant Ecology in a Changing World
  • Topics
    • Topic Overview
    • Biomes and Climates in a Changing World >
      • Adaptation, biodiversity, and environment
      • Climate constrains plant distributions
      • Biome and climate relationships
      • Deserts
      • Grassland, savanna, and shrub biomes
      • Forest biomes
      • Alpine and tundra biomes
    • Plant adaptation >
      • Plant microclimate 1
      • Plant microclimate 2
      • Leaf energy budgets
      • Water movement through the soil-plant continuum
      • Principles of photosynthesis
      • Photosynthesis responses to light and temperature
      • Environmental stresses limit resource capture and use
      • Nutrients in the environment
      • Adaptation to environmental stress
    • Resource Allocation Changes with Environment >
      • Architecture and canopy processes
      • Plant phenology and resource allocation enhance performance
      • Leaf economic spectrum
      • Life history and reproduction
      • Defense against herbivory
      • Plant competition
    • Plant Responses to a Changing World >
      • Global changes occurring today
      • Invasive species
      • Atmospheric CO2 impacts plant
      • C3/C4 photosynthesis and climate
      • Climate change and the global carbon cycle
      • Climate warming and its impacts
    • Engineering Plant Communities >
      • Remember Utah's past and envision our future
      • Restoration ecology
      • Managed ecosystems
      • Utah urban ecology
      • Urban ecological futures
  • Assignments
    • Assignments Overview
    • Discussion
    • Problem sets
    • Ecology & Global Changes
    • Plant ecology policy
    • Defense of policy
    • Exam #1
    • Exam #2
  • Campus
    • Campus Overview
    • Grasses
    • Green infrastructure >
      • GI Overview
      • Stormwater >
        • GI 1
        • GI 2
        • GI 3
        • GI 4
        • GI 10
      • Green roof
      • Pollinator >
        • Pollinator species
    • Trees of the Wasatch
    • Shrubs of the Wasatch
    • Invasives
  • Biomes
    • Biome Overview
    • Climate diagrams
    • Vegetation sight-seeing trip
    • Biome images
  • Models
  • Lab
Topic 15 – Adaptation to environmental stress
 
Essential elements from Topic 15:
1.Plants are exposed to multiple environmental stressors, which can occur singly or in combination. These stressors include water, sunlight, edaphic, air pollutants, and temperature.
2.Adaptive responses to stressors can be broadly categorized as avoidance and tolerance.
3.Osmotic adjustment is a common response to water deficits.
4.Stomata are an increasing constraint on productivity, as regional climate gets drier.
5.Carbon isotope ratios are used as an integrated measure of stomatal function relative to photosynthesis.
6.The xanthophyll cycle is of advantage to plants in avoidance of damage associated with excess light conditions.
7.Paraheliotropic leaf movements, changes in leaf spectral characteristics, and adjustments in leaf angle are of advantage to plants in avoidance of damage associated with excess light conditions.
8.The Arizona monsoon boundary creates a summer moisture gradient in soil water availability that affects plant distributions.


Click here to download PDF of slides associated with Topic 15
Click here to view YOUTUBE videos on Topic 15
Jim Ehleringer, University of Utah