Plant Physiology and Development 6th Ed

The Sixth Edition of Plant Physiology and Development also includes updated and improved versions of the physiological chapters in Units I and II. A new chapter on Stomatal Biology has been added to Unit II. The chapters on Mineral Nutrition and Assimilation of Inorganic Nutrients feature a new treatment of nitrogen metabolism:

• Ammonium and nitrate are often lumped together as inorganic nitrogen although their influences on plants are quite different, almost like two different elements. These two forms of nitrogen are therefore treated separately in the Sixth Edition.
• The pathway of all nutrients essential in the human diet begins with plant roots “mining” the soil for mineral elements; the Sixth Edition explicitly examines the linkage between plant nutrition and human health.
• The response of plants to rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide depends most strongly on their nitrogen status. The Sixth Edition describes the newly discovered mechanism for this dependence and how it will influence food quality in the future.
• Exciting new findings on the mechanisms of mycorrhizal associations and symbiotic nitrogen fixation will be added, providing insights about the interdependence of plants and microorganisms.

Lincoln Taiz is Professor Emeritus of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He received his Ph.D. in Botany from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971. Dr. Taiz’s main research focus has been on the structure, function, and evolution of vacuolar H+-ATPases. He has also worked on gibberellins, cell wall mechanical properties, metal tolerance, auxin transport, and stomatal opening.