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Medicine and materials[edit]aazzqq

Tapping a rubber tree in Thailand

Phytochemistry is a branch of plant biochemistry primarily concerned with the chemical substances [84] produced by plants during secondary metabolism. Some of these compounds are toxins such as the alkaloid coniine from hemlock. Others, such as the essential oils peppermint oil and lemon oil are useful for their aroma, as flavourings and spices (e.g., capsaicin), and in medicine as pharmaceuticals as in opium from opium poppies. Many medicinal and recreational drugs, such astetrahydrocannabinol (active ingredient in marijuana), caffeine, morphine andnicotine come directly from plants. Others are simple derivatives of botanical natural products. For example, the pain [85] killer aspirin is the acetyl ester of salicylic acid, originally isolated from the bark of willow trees, and a wide range of opiatepainkillers like heroin are obtained by chemical modification of morphine obtained [86] from the opium poppy. Popular stimulants come from plants, such as caffeinefrom coffee, tea and chocolate, and nicotine from tobacco. Most alcoholic beverages come from fermentation of carbohydrate[87] rich plant products such asbarley (beer), rice (sake) and grapes (wine). Plants can synthesise useful coloured dyes and pigments such as theanthocyanins responsible for the red colour of red wine, yellow weld and blue woadused together to produce Lincoln green, indoxyl, source of the blue dye indigotraditionally used to dye denim and the artist's pigments gamboge and rose madder. Sugar, starch, cotton, linen, hemp, some types of rope, wood and particle boards, papyrus and paper, vegetable oils, wax, andnatural rubber are examples of commercially important materials made from plant tissues or their secondary products. Charcoal, a pure form of carbon made by pyrolysis of wood, has a long history as a metal-smelting fuel, as a filter material and adsorbent and as an artist's material and is one of the three ingredients of gunpowder. Cellulose, the world's most abundant organic [88] polymer, can be converted into energy, fuels, materials and chemical feedstock. Products made from

cellulose include rayon andcellophane, wallpaper paste, biobutanol and gun cotton. Sugarcane, rapeseed and soy are some of the plants with a highly fermentable sugar or oil [89] content that are used as sources of biofuels, important alternatives to fossil fuels, such as biodiesel.

Plant ecology[edit]
Holdridge life zones model relationships between vegetation type, moisture availability and temperature.

Main article: Plant ecology Plant ecology is the science of the functional relationships between plants and their habitatsthe environments where they complete their life cycles. Plant ecologists study the composition of local and regional floras, theirbiodiversity, genetic diversity and fitness, the adaptation of plants to their [90] environment, and their competitive ormutualistic interactions with other species. The goals of plant ecology are to understand the causes of their distribution patterns, productivity, environmental impact, [91] evolution, and responses to environmental change. Plants depend on certain edaphic (soil) and climatic factors in their environment but can modify these factors too. For example, they can change their environment'salbedo, increase runoff interception, stabilize mineral soils and develop their organic content, and affect local temperature. Plants compete [92][93] with other organisms in their ecosystem for resources. They interact with their neighbours at a variety of spatial scales in groups, populations and communities that collectively constitute vegetation. Regions with characteristic vegetation types and dominant plants as well as similar abiotic andbiotic factors, climate, and geography make up biomes like tundra or tropical [94] rainforest.

The nodules of Medicago italica contain thenitrogen fixing bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti. The plant provides the bacteria with nutrients and an anaerobic environment, and the bacteriafix nitrogen for the plant.[95]

Herbivores eat plants, but plants can defend themselves and some species areparasitic or even carnivorous. Other organisms form mutually beneficial relationships with plants. For example mycorrhizal fungi and rhizobia provide plants with nutrients in exchange for food, ants are [96] recruited by ant plants to provide protection, honey bees, bats and other [97][98] [99] animals pollinate flowers andhumans and other animals act as dispersal vectors to spread spores and seeds.

Plants, climate and environmental change[edit]


Plant responses to climate and other environmental changes can inform our understanding of how these changes affect ecosystem function and productivity. For example, plant phenology can be a useful proxy for temperature in historical climatology, and the biological impact of climate change and global warming.Palynology, the analysis of fossil pollen deposits in sediments [100] from thousands or millions of years ago allows the reconstruction of past climates. Estimates of atmospheric CO2 concentrations since the Palaeozoic have been obtained fromstomatal densities and the [101] leaf shapes and sizes of ancient land plants. Ozone depletion can expose plants to higher levels [102] ofultraviolet radiation-B (UV-B), resulting in lower growth rates. Moreover, information from studies of community ecology, plantsystematics, and taxonomy is essential to understanding

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