Ecophysiology, Nitrogen Fixation and Plant Stress

Abstract

Botanists have long been aware of the interrelation between ecology and physiology, e.g. Clements (1907), Schimper (1960), but it was apparently Billings (1957) who first formalised the union with the terms ‘physiological ecology’ and ‘ecological physiology’. The term ‘eco-physiology’, however, was first introduced in 1962 at UNESCO’s Montpellier Symposium where it was defined by Eckardt (1965) in the English summary of his paper as follows:

“Eco-physiology, in the acceptance of the term adopted in the proceedings of the Montpellier Symposium, deals with all relationships existing between living beings and their physical and biotic environment. It thus embraces not only the study of the adaptive structural and functional features which link the individual plant or animal to its specific environment, but also that of all forms of transfer and transformation of energy and mass connected with the dynamics of the ecosystem.”