Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Botany is a natural science concerned with the study of plants.The main branches of botany (also referred to as "plant science") are commonly divided into three groups: core topics, concerned with the study of the fundamental natural phenomena and processes of plant life, the classification and description of plant diversity; applied topics which study the ways in which plants may be used for ...
Botany, also called plant science or phytology, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially their anatomy, taxonomy, and ecology. [1] A botanist , plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field.
Ethnobotany is an interdisciplinary field at the interface of natural and social sciences that studies the relationships between humans and plants. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It focuses on traditional knowledge of how plants are used, managed, and perceived in human societies .
Humans depend on plants for food, either directly or as feed for domestic animals. Agriculture deals with the production of food crops, and has played a key role in the history of world civilizations. Agriculture includes agronomy for arable crops, horticulture for vegetables and fruit, and forestry for timber. [3]
Resources can be consumed by one organism and, as a result, become unavailable to another organism. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] For plants key resources are light , nutrients , water, and space to grow. For animals key resources are food, water, and territory .
Plant physiology is a subdiscipline of botany concerned with the functioning, or physiology, of plants. [1]A germination rate experiment. Plant physiologists study fundamental processes of plants, such as photosynthesis, respiration, plant nutrition, plant hormone functions, tropisms, nastic movements, photoperiodism, photomorphogenesis, circadian rhythms, environmental stress physiology, seed ...
They sequester nitrogen and other nutrients that might otherwise enter groundwater, and they fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, making it available to plants. Many organisms enhance soil aggregation and porosity, thus increasing infiltration and reducing surface runoff. Soil organisms prey on crop pests and are food for above-ground animals.
While many plants have been used for food, a small number of staple crops including wheat, rice, and maize provide most of the food in the world today. In turn, animals provide much of the meat eaten by the human population, whether farmed or hunted, and until the arrival of mechanised transport, terrestrial mammals provided a large part of the ...