Plant Physiology 2009

MSH 101 -- MWF 11 am

Lab W 1-4 pmMSH 75

Tracking down the green

Looking closer

PCB01

chlorophyll

Why plants are cool

• Responsible for almost all of life on earth– Oxygen, food

• You see them everywhere– Understanding: your life is more interesting

• They are useful– Food, fiber, drugs, building material,

aesthetics, culture, shade

• They are interesting

Plants interesting?

• Venus flytrap• Pitcher plants• Castor bean (ricin)• Giant sequoia

– miniplants

• Spices• Pollination• Interesting sex lives• Biology• Cells

General Topics

• Background: plant bodies, cells, skills

• How plants do things – Interact with water, minerals (tissues & cells)– Interconvert energy (light, chemical forms)– Make chemical compounds– Control what goes on chemically in cells– Respond to the environment– Develop from seeds into trees (etc.)

• Fulfill a requirement

• Fill out big chunk of biology– Plant kingdom– How organisms work (high level)

• Make your life more interesting

• Prepare for further education– “most valuable course”– “best preparation”

Value of this course

Class requirements

• Problem sets• Lab handins weekly

– No long reports– Mostly graphs and abstracts, some data

• Plant growth & development project• 4 quizzes, 3 tests (every other week)

– Includes labs for that period

• Final exam• Attendance?

– What to do if you miss a class

You need• Class manual

– $7.50 today (Wednesday)– Labs, exercises, reference,

helpful stuff

• Text– Comprehensive– At least one per lab group– Need to use after each lecture

• Intro Biology text• Flash drive• Fat notebook

How to do well

• Come to class• Read text after class• Form a study group now

– See Appendix D (“How to survive…”)

• Use supplementary material– www.uni.edu/berg, weblog– Instructor’s notes (on web or WebCT)– Downloads (on web or WebCT)– Your Bio I-II text

• Turn in good assignments on time

You can get individual help

• After class

• In lab

• Email, phone, weblog

• Office hours

Hard class?

• Lots of information

• Some complex ideas– Maybe you learned a junior version before– We learn the senior version

• Things to tie together

• Need to use new skills– Thinking– Technical (graphs, computers, writing)

Your study group

• Insures frequent contact with material– Keeps you from getting behind

• Answer each other’s questions– Helps asker and answerer – Understanding and remembering

• Helps with problem sets

• Can share a book

Labs

• Lab is really important– Hands on experience– Skills– Understanding– Communicating

• Handins most weeks• Scored +, or –

– + adds 1 pt to next test grade, - subtracts 1 pt has no effect (OK, but not wonderful)– Easy way to get extra points

Fish versus fishing

• You can give people fish, and it helps them once • You can teach people fishing, and it helps them forever

(even with nonfishing activities) • Most people want fish right now (training, not education) • This course is mostly about learning to fish • Like a foreign language

– need vocabulary (facts) – need grammar (relationships, processes) – can't use the grammar without the vocabulary – vocabulary is useless without the grammar

• Poincaré: Science is no more a pile of facts than a house is a pile of bricks

Goals for PP: Help you

• Native plants, agriculture, gardens, house plants • Reason & communicate• Science as a process (lab experiments, project) • Interested in plants (even animal people) • New lab techniques that are used throughout science • Analyzing and presenting material • Future teachers (and parents) tricks they can use • Fun (solemn vs. serious) • Mostly fishing, not fish

Questions about the course?

More details in the course manual.

Now to start the content

Physiology = how things work

• Verb-oriented, not noun-oriented • Biochemistry, biophysics, molecular biology:

provide mechanisms and constraints • Physiology: mechanisms and constraints for

evolution, genetics, ecology, and behavior• Levels: cellular, tissue, organ, organ system,

organismal.

Water in plants

• Moves from soil to seed • From soil into plant to leaves to air• Into cells from surroundings• Questions

– Why does it move?– What makes it actually move?– What route does it follow?– What controls how much moves?

Right now

• Huddle in groups of 2-3

• List how you can get water to move– Physical methods– In plants, animals or rest of world

• Finished? Talked to another finished group

• 1-2 minutes

• Will list on board

Water movement

Plant Physiology UNI

2009

Water moves

• Downstream• Wet laundry to air• Humid air to salt or sugar• Ice to salt on sidewalk• Moist soil to seeds or roots• Up a tree trunk• From outside a cell to inside

– Or vice versa

• From plant to air

What can make water move?

• Pressure

• Gravity

• Solutes

• Hydrophilic materials

What do these have in common?

• Pressure: high to low

• Gravity: high to low

• Solutes: free water becomes bound

• Hydrophilic substances: free to bound

• All from high energy to low energy water

• Thermodynamic story

Universal principles

• Water moves from high energy to low– Expression of entropy

• Energy of water molecules– Physical component (pressure, temp)– Chemical component (interaction with solutes)

• Our task: understand and apply to biology

• We will be able to predict and explain

Kitchen plant physiology

late morning mid-afternoon night next morning