BIOL 356 - Topics in Plant Physiology

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

A consideration of physiological aspects of primary production, including the biogeochemical cycling of nutrients through plant systems. Topics will focus on the recent primary literature in the field.

Topic for 2018/19a: The Secret Lives of Plants. Plants are amazing survivalists. They have evolved myriad strategies to solve complex problems associated with terrestrial conquest and their stationary lifestyles. For instance, plants have become remarkable chemists capable of mounting full-scale biological warfare to fend off pathogen attacks, and master plumbers that carefully harness water power for transport and growth. This course examines how plants regulate their physiology through cellular and molecular adaptations, with emphasis on exploring open research questions. Topics may include environmental stress and defense responses, determinants of plant morphology, factors driving sexual reproduction, and agricultural themes ranging from identification of the genes underlying thousands of years of plant domestication to modern genetic engineering technologies that mark the next wave of the green revolution. Robert Augustine.

Prerequisite(s): Two units of any 200-level Biology.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS