Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction to tropical alpine vegetation
- 2 Tropical alpine climates
- 3 Páramo microclimate and leaf thermal balance of Andean giant rosette plants
- 4 Comparative water relations of tropical alpine plants
- 5 Cold tolerance in tropical alpine plants
- 6 Anatomy of tropical alpine plants
- 7 Environmental biology of a tropical treeline species, Polylepis sericea
- 8 Morphological and physiological radiation in páramo Draba
- 9 Sediment-based carbon nutrition in tropical alpine Isoetes
- 10 Functional significance of inflorescence pubescence in tropical alpine species of Puya
- 11 Turnover and conservation of nutrients in the pachycaul Senecio keniodendron
- 12 Soil nutrient dynamics in East African alpine ecosystems
- 13 An overview of the reproductive biology of Espeletia (Asteraceae) in the Venezuelan Andes
- 14 Population biology of Mount Kenya lobelias
- 15 Population biology of Senecio keniodendron (Asteraceae), an Afroalpine giant rosette plant
- 16 Population dynamics and flowering in a Hawaiian alpine rosette plant, Argyroxiphium sandwicense
- 17 Plant form and function in alpine New Guinea
- 18 Alpine herbivory on Mount Kenya
- 19 Biotic interactions in Hawaiian high elevation ecosystems
- 20 Tropical alpine ecology: progress and priorities
- Index
6 - Anatomy of tropical alpine plants
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction to tropical alpine vegetation
- 2 Tropical alpine climates
- 3 Páramo microclimate and leaf thermal balance of Andean giant rosette plants
- 4 Comparative water relations of tropical alpine plants
- 5 Cold tolerance in tropical alpine plants
- 6 Anatomy of tropical alpine plants
- 7 Environmental biology of a tropical treeline species, Polylepis sericea
- 8 Morphological and physiological radiation in páramo Draba
- 9 Sediment-based carbon nutrition in tropical alpine Isoetes
- 10 Functional significance of inflorescence pubescence in tropical alpine species of Puya
- 11 Turnover and conservation of nutrients in the pachycaul Senecio keniodendron
- 12 Soil nutrient dynamics in East African alpine ecosystems
- 13 An overview of the reproductive biology of Espeletia (Asteraceae) in the Venezuelan Andes
- 14 Population biology of Mount Kenya lobelias
- 15 Population biology of Senecio keniodendron (Asteraceae), an Afroalpine giant rosette plant
- 16 Population dynamics and flowering in a Hawaiian alpine rosette plant, Argyroxiphium sandwicense
- 17 Plant form and function in alpine New Guinea
- 18 Alpine herbivory on Mount Kenya
- 19 Biotic interactions in Hawaiian high elevation ecosystems
- 20 Tropical alpine ecology: progress and priorities
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Despite recent interest in alpine ecology, we have little information on anatomy of alpine plants. This is as true of tropical alpine plants as it is of those from temperate mountain areas. The reasons for the lack of studies in anatomy of tropical alpine plants are perhaps surprising.
First, one can cite the tendency for plant anatomists to work little on comparative problems and, when they do, to work in terms of particular taxonomic groups and to express their data in systematic terms rather than in ecological ones. To be sure, interest in ecological plant anatomy has increased in the latter half of the 20th century, and one can cite more studies concerning tropical alpine plants in recent years. The curious climatic regimes of high equatorial mountains make anatomical adaptations of especial interest, as will be seen from the relatively few examples cited in this chapter. Adaptations to frost and to drought are central in tropical plants, but these adaptations are different from those in plants of extremely cold or extremely dry regions.
A second reason for lack of studies on anatomy of tropical alpine species is a by-product of the working habits characteristic of biologists. Ecologists, unless highly theoretical in orientation, tend to use the outdoors as a laboratory. For the plant anatomist, laboratory work must be done indoors, and the habit of working both in the field and in the laboratory apparently does not come easily to most plant anatomists.
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- Tropical Alpine EnvironmentsPlant Form and Function, pp. 111 - 128Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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