Plant Eco-Physiology, its scientific structure, scope and projections
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Abstract
The purpose of this presentation is to discuss some ideas on scientific structure and the scope and projections of Ecophysiology. The topic is approached by asking three questions: 1) Does Ecophysiology provide actual interdisciplinary integration? 2) What is the scope of Ecophysiology? and 3) To which aspects of scientific research and current problems is Ecophysiology related. The first question leads to another: What do workers in the field of Ecophysiology expect from it? Several possible answers are discussed: a) the possibility to reduce theories, b) a feedback of questions, information, methodology, etc., c) a better position to understand concepts such as adaptation, competition, stress, or disturbance, and d) an explicit framework to identify questions that deal with the functioning and behavior of individuals and their inter- and intra-specific relations. The scope of Ecophysiology is discussed in terms of the levels of organization, from the metabolic to the molecular one. An inventory of the objects of this science and of its links to some current scientific and practical problems is analyzed.
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