In Vitro and In Vivo Bioassays

Abstract

The plant’s environment is determined by all the physical and chemical factors that characterize the habitats, and also by the effects that other co-occurring organisms induce on them. The functional study of plant’s behaviour in their environment linked ecology and physiology in a new discipline, the ecophysiology (Pardos 2005). Ecophysiologists, or physiological ecologists deal with ecological questions like the mechanisms that regulate and control growth, reproduction, survival, abundance, and geographical distribution of plants, as these processes are affected by interactions of plants with their physical, chemical, and biotic environment. The knowledge of these ecophysiological patterns and mechanisms helps to understand the functional significance of specific plant traits and their evolutionary heritage. Ecophysiological techniques have greatly advanced understanding of photosynthesis, respiration, plant water relations, and plant responses to abiotic and biotic stress, from immediate to evolutionary timescales. Many important societal issues, as agriculture, climate change, or nature conservation, benefit from the application of an ecophysiological perspective (Lambers et al. 2008). Plants have adapted to an incredible range of environments, and the fields of ecological and environmental plant physiology have provided tools for understanding the survival, distribution, productivity, and abundance of plant species across the diverse climates of our planet (Ainsworth et al. 2016).