Alpine Plant Life

Generations of plant scientists have been fascinated by alpine plant life - with the exposure of organisms to dramatic climatic gradients over a very short distance. This comprehensive text treats a wide range of topics: alpine climate and soils, plant distribution and the treeline phenomenon, physiological ecology of water-, nutritional- and carbon relations of alpine plants, plant stress and plant development, biomass production, aspects of reproductive biology, and human impacts on alpine vegetation. Geographically the book covers all parts of the world including the tropics.
TOC: Plant ecology at high elevations.- The alpine life zone.- Alpine climate.- The climate plants experience.- Life under snow: protection and limitation.- Alpine soils.- Alpine treelines.- Climatic stress.- Water relations.- Mineral nutrition.- Uptake and loss of carbon.- Carbon investments.- Growth dynamics.- Cell division and tissue formation.- Plant biomass production.- Plant reproduction.- Global change at high elevation.- References (with chapter annotation).- Index.- Color Plates.