Plant growth and climate change

Abstract

‘Climate change’ is an all-embracing subject: increasing carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, due to the insatiable appetite of our burgeoning Homo sapiens (or perhaps better H. carbonovorum) populations for energy from fossil carbon reserves, is the main driver. The consequent global warming may lead to very complex changes in rainfall patterns and many secondary alterations in the weather (climate) system. How such changes in environmental conditions will affect plant growth, in natural and managed system, is central to understanding the effects of climate change. The topic has enormous implications for all inhabitants of the biosphere and, crucially, for our responses. This provides the plant sciences with an enormous challenge, to understand what has happened, is happening, and will happen to ecosystems and agriculture in relation to climate. Potentially, the topic can include every aspect of plant science, and its importance is recognized in a large number of scientific research articles and reviews. This slim collection of reviews tackles important issues, most of which have been addressed recently in similar ways. Therefore one might question the need for a further analysis. However, on balance, this book is timely, and focused on plants more widely than the title suggests, ranging from organ physiology through to ecosystem responses. The nine chapters are by highly respected practitioners in the topics they review: some are by single authors, others by several. They provide excellent cover of the recent literature and achieve some integration of different but related topics. The introductory chapter addresses recent and future climate change and implications for plant growth, followed by analysis of the responses of plants to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (a very well trodden path), then two chapters consider different aspects of the effects of very rapidly rising temperature on ecological and phenotypic responses of plants. Another pair of related but distinct reviews analyse the responses of plants to water supply. A further chapter considers the interactions of temperature and precipitation, whilst another emphasizes modelling responses to CO2 and the role of nitrogen supply. A final chapter attempts to predict effects of climate change on plant productivity and the carbon cycle. Perhaps at this stage in the subject's development readers might look for more synthesis, ideally quantitative ‘models’ trying to bring together the ideas and data, rather than the repetition of what the literature contains. That requires a very different approach, and is not the main strength of the book. Rather, the analyses provide thoughtful and valuable additions to the literature, based on relatively new research publications, so providing a useful source of reference. The editorial and production standards are excellent, and the index is a reasonably inclusive: the price is what one now expects (unfortunately!). I recommend the book for advanced students, teachers and researchers who have interests in, and need to consider, a wide range of plant—environment processes, not just the complexities of plant responses to ‘climate change’, which is only one aspect of the human-induced environmental change that plants face.