LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to provide the basis for understanding the working mechanisms of plants and their innumerable potentialities, for example in the environment, as appropriate models for biological research, as sources of essential foods and substances of pharmaceutical interest.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to provide the indispensable knowledge of the vital processes of plants. The student will therefore understand: the physical and biochemical processes that allow the use of solar energy for the assimilation of inorganic carbon, the characteristic metabolic pathways of plants, the internal and external factors that regulate plant development and plant responses to environmental stresses.

TEACHING METHODS

Frontal lessons.

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SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Photosynthesis: the light reactions; collection and conversion of radiant energy into chemical energy, photosynthetic pigments, linear flow and cyclic flow of electrons, photoprotective mechanisms. Photosynthesis: carbon reactions; the Calvin-Benson cycle, sucrose biosynthesis, starch biosynthesis and architecture. Phloem, the partition of photoassimilates. Photorespiration: the C2 oxidative photosynthetic carbon cycle. CO2-concentrating mechanisms: C4 and CAM plants. Water and plants: definition of water potential. Xylem, theory of tension-cohesion, xylem embolism. Stomata, opening and closing mechanisms. Mineral nutrition and roots. Genesis of membrane potential in plant cells, definition of proton motive force, primary active transport, active secondary transport, passive transport. Absorption inside the plant cell of cations and anions. Outline: assimilation of nitrogen and sulfur; plant movements; plant photoreceptors; plant hormones; secondary metabolites.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

- Rascio, Elementi di Fisiologia Vegetale, Edises

- Taiz and Zeiger, Plant Physiology, Sinauer Associates