Functional Biology and Plant Strategies

Abstract

Functional biology applied to plants explores how they capture and use resources and thus produce usable yield (crops) or ensure the long-term survival of the species and the genes (wild plants). Functional biology examines these results to ask why plants perform as they do, attempting to explain evolved function and to indicate how crops may be improved. The goal of most plant research, either proximately or ultimately, is generally the latter, finding out if and how we may improve crop performance. Functional biology enables us to develop quantitative, testable hypotheses about the optimality of plants’ resource use. Potentially it allows us to determine the upper limits to crop performance. Some limits are known to fairly high specificity, as for leaf photosynthesis (Bassham, 1977; Gutschick, 1986). However, we still have little idea of other limits, such as the theoretical maximum yields for given degrees of salinity in the soil water. Functional biology can also suggest previously unsuspected routes to crop improvement, e.g., breeding for specific leaf mass to optimize canopy photosynthesis (Chap. 3). A particular strength of functional biology is its potential to unify crop improvement efforts of diverse disciplines. Ultimately it promises to determine the single suite of physiological and morphological characteristics of a species that will give the greatest yield or other value indicator for a given environment (Sec. 1.D.i, item 2).