Even, if I have usually not much interest in metaterms like what is Ecology,
Paul von Gardingens question raises a few interesting points:
When we read textbooks of Ecology, they are usually dominated by
ideas on populations, adaptation and acclimation, as well as evolutionary
arguments behind these. When we talk about physiology we usually understand
the enfunctioning of a plant as a biochemical system. (With some difference
in scale to biochemistry).
In plant ecophysiology, there is usually a lot of physiological argumentation,
but little focus on ecological aspects in respect to ecological strategies,
or fitness of a plant individuum, but plants are taken as a physiological
defined system, with some responses to the environment.
This raises two questions:
1) What happened to evolutionary elements in plant ecophysiology, why only
a few people are using these?
2) Is environmental plant physiology a more appropiate term for 95% of
the plant ecophysiological research. Or should ecophysiology be reserved
for research with explicit linkage to acclimation, adaptation or population
processes?
Frank
