Book Reviews

Among the many books and booklets dealing with ecology this paperback on Ecology of plants (Okologie der Pflanzen) is a really important contribution in the field of experimental ecology. The descriptive parts of the various chapters are rather limited and serve only as introductions to the causal analysis of the phenomena, which, in fact, gives the experimental information on the background of responses of plants to the environment, growing apart or in communities. The primary objective of the author to present basal mechanisms and functional relationships in the system plant-environment meets the needs that are felt in a broad circle of investigators. The author, an expert in this field, has succeeded very well in presenting the framework of an experimental approach to autecology by presenting a combination of laboratory and field research on carbohydrate balance, mineral balance and water balance. The presentation of these chapters is straightforward, clear, convincing and easily readable. The treatment gives both rather basal physiological information and a synthesis to ecological understanding. The latter ultimately has to result in useful models, of which examples and suggestions can be found in a number of cases.