Today global changes and human activities affect plants within each of the world's ecosystems. Plant Ecology in a Changing World provides a foundation for understanding how the changes underway impact structure and function in the world's major biomes, while also describing how evolution has resulted in the biochemical, physiological, structural, and life history features that shaped plants and their capacities to persist across widely contrasting environments. This textbook is designed for undergraduate students and graduate students as well to serve as a resource for climate change and ecosystem scientists seeking a foundation on the principles of plant ecology and the basis of plant adaptations. While many textbooks focus primarily on natural ecosystems, Plant Ecology in a Changing World also recognizes the ecological importance of invasive, managed, and urban ecosystems and of the ways in which ecosystems are already being impacted by both human activities and a warming planet.

Key features:

• Replete with 450+ figures that help to elucidate concepts and charts to clearly present key data
• Boxes within chapters allow those who wish to delve into more advanced aspects of topics and of those key methodological approaches used to quantify processes
• Highlights of key plant ecologists and of their contributions
• Each chapter concludes with a bulleted summary, enabling students to recap the key points of the chapter
• Each chapter comes with both a list of references, as well as with suggested readings, allowing the student to expand their knowledge on a particular topic

Associated with the book is an array of supplementary materials. These are available and constantly updated at http://plantecology.site.

James R. Ehleringer is a Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Utah. Throughout his career, Jim's research has focused on the ecology and ecophysiology of plants in arid, semi-arid, and forest ecosystems. His contributions have included photosynthesis, water relations, and stable isotopes. Jim's focus on stable isotopes has revealed the utility of this measurement as a natural recorder and tracer in both plants and animals on a spatial and temporal basis for improving our understanding of processes ranging from physiological through global scales.

Russell K. Monson is Professor Emeritus of Distinction in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado. Russ's research has focused on the evolutionary ecology of C4 photosynthesis, the nitrogen cycle in alpine ecosystems, carbon cycling in forest ecosystems, the reconstruction of climate patterns using tree ring stable isotopes, and the biochemistry and ecology of plant volatile compounds. Russ recently retired from a second career, serving as Louise Foucar Marshall Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Laboratory for Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona.

Addressing issues of global change from an evolutionary perspective, this book is divided into four parts. It discusses the impact of climate change on the spatial distribution of plants; the means by which plants acquire resources in a changing environment; plant responses to predictable and unpredictable environmental conditions affecting resource availability; and the integration of currently disparate fields to provide the foundation for a new literature on how plants respond to a world changing faster than ever before.

Plant Distributions are Related to Climate. Plants Capture Resources in a Dynamic Environment. Plant Behavior When Life is Predictable and When it is Not. Plant Responses to a Changing World. References and Appendices.