Methods in Comparative Plant Ecology: A laboratory manual is a sister book to the widely acclaimed Comparative Plant Ecology by Grime, Hodgson and Hunt. It contains details on some 90 critical concise diagnostic techniques by over 40 expert contributors. In one volume it provides an authoritative bench-top guide to diagnostic techniques in experimental plant ecology.

The majority of the world's people depend research work should be carried out at the local and regional level by locally trained on plants for their livelihood since they grow them for food, fuel, timber, fodder and people. many other uses. A good understanding Following the success of our earlier book of the practical factors which govern the (Techniques in Bioproductivity and Photo synthesis; Pergamon Press, 1985), which productivity of plants through the process of photosynthesis is therefore of paramount was translated into four major languages, importance, especially in the light of cur the editors and contributors have exten rent concern about global climate change sively revised the content and widened the and the response of both crops and natural scope of the text,· so it now bears a title ecosystems. in line with current concern over global The origins of this book lie in a series of climate change. · In particular, we have training courses sponsored by the United added chapters on remote sensing, con Nations Environment Programme (Project trolled-environment studies, chlorophyll No. FP/6108-88-0l (2855); 'Environment fluorescence, metabolite partitioning and changes and the productivity of tropical the use of mass isotopes, all of which grasslands'), with additional support from techniques are increasing in their applica many international and national agencies. tion and importance to this subject area.

Physiological plant ecology is primarily concerned with the function and performance of plants in their environment. Within this broad focus, attempts are made on one hand to understand the underlying physiological, biochemical and molecular attributes of plants with respect to performance under the constraints imposed by the environment. On the other hand physiological ecology is also concerned with a more synthetic view which attempts to under stand the distribution and success of plants measured in terms of the factors that promote long-term survival and reproduction in the environment. These concerns are not mutually exclusive but rather represent a continuum of research approaches. Osmond et al. (1980) have elegantly pointed this out in a space-time scale showing that the concerns of physiological ecology range from biochemical and organelle-scale events with time constants of a second or minutes to succession and evolutionary-scale events involving communities and ecosystems and thousands, if not millions, of years. The focus of physiological ecology is typically at the single leaf or root system level extending up to the whole plant. The time scale is on the order of minutes to a year. The activities of individual physiological ecologists extend in one direction or the other, but few if any are directly concerned with the whole space-time scale. In their work, however, they must be cognizant both of the underlying mechanisms as well as the consequences to ecological and evolutionary processes.