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Posts: 25
Registered:
June 2006
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BNMC seminar: Thurs, Oct 22: Reconstructing the Physiology of Extinct Plants using Mathematical Mod
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Tue, 13 October 2009 15:20
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"Reconstructing the Physiology of Extinct Plants using Mathematical
Modeling"
Jonathan Wilson
Postdoctoral Scholar
Geological and Planetary Sciences
Caltech
Thursday Oct. 22, 2009
2:00 PM -3:00 PM
Beckman Institute Auditorium
Plants, unlike animals, have much of their function encoded in their
anatomy: rate-limiting steps of several physiological processes are often
determined by dimensions of anatomical structures. For example, plants move
water great distances by exploiting the relative humidity difference between
the soil and the atmosphere. Natural selection has fine-tuned the morphology
of wood cells to minimize hydraulic resistance, and this resistance can be
quantified using mathematical models, allowing plant function to be read
from tissue-level anatomy. Furthermore, xylem-containing tissues are among
the most likely to be preserved in the fossil record, opening up a
400-million-year window into the coevolution of plant function and the
environment. In this talk, I will focus on the evolution of water transport
in plants, and how mathematical models derived from analysis of anatomical
structures allow for quantitative estimates of extinct plant function and
physiology.
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