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Quite naturally, photosynthesis has achieved massive amounts of attention in recent years. Aside from being the most spectacular physiological process in plant growth, it is actually the key to our dealing with the potentially cataclysmic accumulation of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere.

Unfortunately, while information is plentiful, all this attention has resulted in a scattered database on photosynthesis, with no contemporary starting point…at least until now.

With the second edition of the Handbook of Photosynthesis, Mohammad Pessarakli once again fills the need for an authoritative and balanced resource by assembling a team of experts from across the globe. Together, they have created a comprehensive reference that in a single volume includes important background information, as well as the most recent research findings on photosynthesis.

Completely Revised with Several New Chapters

The handbook, a completely updated reworking of the critically acclaimed first edition, details all of the photosynthetic factors and processes under both normal and stressful conditions, covering lower and higher plants as well as related biochemistry and plant molecular biology.

Divided into fourteen sections for ease of reference, with nearly 8000 bibliographic citations, the handbook contains authoritative contributions from over 80 scientists. It includes approximately 500 drawings, photographs, tables, and equations— all designed to reinforce and clarify important text material. ... Read more

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Environmental insults such as extremes of temperature, extremes of water status as well as deteriorating soil conditions pose major threats to agriculture and food security. Employing contemporary tools and techniques from all branches of science, attempts are being made worldwide to understand how plants respond to abiotic stresses with the aim to help manipulate plant performance that will be better suited to withstand these stresses. This book on abiotic stress attempts to search for possible answers to several basic questions related to plant responses towards abiotic stresses. Presented in this book is a holistic view of the general principles of stress perception, signal transduction and regulation of gene expression. Further, chapters analyze not only model systems but extrapolate interpretations obtained from models to crops. Lastly, discusses how stress-tolerant crop or model plants have been or are being raised through plant breeding and genetic engineering approaches. Twenty three chapters, written by international authorities, integrate molecular details with overall plant structure and physiology, in a text-book style, including key references.

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Plant Secondary Metabolites provides reliable assays that will equip researchers to meet the unprecedented challenge of fulfilling the huge demand for feed driven by increasing demand of animal protein in developing countries. Using more than a decade of experience working with the quantification of plant secondary metabolites, the authors have created a manual allowing for the safe and efficient use of locally available feed resources. This comprehensive new volume also offers readers a better understanding of plant-animal interactions. The methodologies provided in this volume may also be used to determine plant secondary metabolites in human food and in studying the implications of their consumption on human health and welfare.This volume contains methods for analysis of some important plant secondary metabolites, which may be conducted in laboratories equipped with basic facilities. The chemical nature of plant secondary metabolites and their known physiological effects and mechanisms of action are also briefly presented. The methods have been written in a recipe-like format designed for direct practical use in the laboratory. Authoritative and extensive, Plant Secondary Metabolites will become an essential reference for plant biologists, biochemists, and molecular and cell biologists. ... Read more

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Wherever there is greenery, photosynthesis is working to make oxygen, release energy, and create living matter from the raw material of sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. Without photosynthesis, there would be an empty world, an empty sky, and a sun that does nothing more than warm the rocks and reflect off the sea.

Customer Reviews (8)

from chloroplast to global warming: the history of green things
popular science tends to be written by one of two types of people. scientists who have decided that telling the world about science is as important as working in their lab and writers, usually journalists from magazines that got interested in some aspect of science, wrote a longish piece and then thought enough to make it into a book. this author is the second type but he writes, especially the first 1/3 of the book, on chlorophyll like a passionate scientist. good stuff.

the first part reminded me of _crystal fire,another popular science book that approached the topic both historically and by making the people come alive as in a good novel, coupled with good science. neat trick, rarely done well, which makes my first reading recommendation any of the first 3 chapters, to decide if you want to pursue the whole thing. it's on the higher side of science, potentially a bit of a slough for some, stick with it, finish one chapter before you give up.

the second 1/3 of the book is the level up from chlorophyll, the plants and how they interact with the environment. a lot less science, a lot more speculation and i must admit my enthusiasm waned a bit here. however i could see his big idea and really wanted to understand the whole thing. for this reason, if you decide to read the whole book, read it front to back, some of the meaning is in the relationships built up sequentially, which you'll miss jumping around as i often read.

the last roughly 1/3 is about global warming plus. unfortunately somewhere here my attention continued to wane and reading became looking a words on paper and lost that absorption that was so present earlier. if the author releases another edition it would be nice to see if this could be rewritten to the same level as the first 3rd. what imho is lacking is that person story structure he uses so effectively in part 1. the structure is him walking and thinking about his place and though interesting not as convincing as the interplay of personalities before.

it's a good book. important and timely topic, but best of all it is a good jumpoff point to recommend to get everyone up to speed on these crucial issues: mankind and our effects on our environment. i could see it as a textbook or reading group choice.

note:
fitting together as well as acorns and their shells or a couple spooning. he has a novelist's command of word pictures.

better than five stars
Buy the book because Oliver Morton deserves the royalties, but don't read it - that way I'll look smarter because you won't know when I'm stealing from the book.I don't know how anyone could give this book less than five stars.This is a science book that people will be reading and pointing to 30 years from now, like "The Selfish Gene" or "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"

Good history of photosynthesis
The first 1/3rd of this book is an excellent history of photosynthesis. Morton walks us though the personalities, some of the key experiments and explains a little of the biochemistry as he goes. He has visited some of the pioneers who are still alive. It wasn't until after WW2, when radioactive isotopes and heavy isotopes became available, that details of the carbon fixing cycle of photosynthesis were decoded, and only in the last ten years has it been figured out how light energy is able to break apart the stable water molecule. Morton knows the biochemistry of photosynthesis well and nicely walks the line between being too detailed or too vague. This is difficult science writing and Morton is good at it.

Photosynthesis is without question one of the most important biological processes in all of life. But it's also fun. One of the key molecular machines in photosynthesis is ATPsynthase. I have seen biologist often fail to mention how interesting this little beauty is. It is a rotating molecular machine, a real, high speed (few hundred rotations/sec) double, reversible rotating machine. One of only two rotating molecular machines known in all of life. It has a proton turbine on one end, located in a membrane channel, that is spun by protons diffusing across the membrane. On the other end is an ATP making machine that works by 'sqeezing' phosphate groups onto ADP. Morton describes this rotating machine on p87.

If you want a good history of photosynthesis combined with a quick overview of both its light and dark reactions, this is the book.

All Hail the Chloroplasts!
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QUESTION: Why should anyone want to pay homage to chloroplasts?

ANSWER: Chloroplasts are the specialised structures in which photosynthesis takes place in, for example, plant cells.In the type of photosynthesis that occurs in plants, carbon dioxide and water react in the presence of sunlight to produce life-producing and life-maintaining oxygen.

Thus, this book looks into photosynthesis, one of the miracles of evolution.The author of this book is Oliver Morton, an award-winning science journalist.He is editor of the science publication "Nature."(Morton also has an asteroid named after him.)

This book is divided into three parts:

Part 1: describes how scientists used the analytical tools of the 20TH century to discover the molecular machinery of photosynthesis.(Note that some of the steps of photosynthesis are still not completely understood.)

Part 2: tells how the molecules discovered in (part 1) came to dominate the Earth's chemistry, to reshape its atmosphere, and to drive changes in its climate and habitability.

Part 3: tells what our use of fossil fuels is doing to the carbon cycle (the flow of carbon through the Earth system), and what this affected carbon cycle is doing to the climate.It's also about how our understanding of photosynthesis might help us choose a wiser future.(This is my favourite part.)

The most scientifically technical parts of this book are concentrated towards the beginning.Do you have to read these chapters to understand the rest of the book?Answer: NO.You can skip forward if you desire without losing the thread of the book.There is a handy glossary to help with technical terms if you missed their explanations earlier.

What begins as an essay on an under-appreciated part of the history of science turns into something much richer.The result is wonder, intellectual excitement, clear explanations, lyrical writing, and a new insight into how the world works, linking the very small with the very large.

In reading this book, you will encounter many disciplines such as:history, history of science, physics, physiology, chemistry, biochemistry, and biology.

Finally, there are seven diagrams in this book, all of them helpful.I would have, though, liked to have seen more diagrams.

In conclusion, this book reveals how life is made from light by detailing the most important process on the planet...photosynthesis.

(first published 2008;list of illustrations;author's note;introduction;3 parts or 9 chapters;main narrative 410 pages;glossary;bibliography;further reading;acknowledgements;index)

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A grand read

Oliver Morton has woven a cloth of pure gold from the threads that trace the story of photosynthesis.Eating the Sun is a model of science writing for the nonscientist and an exemplary chapter in the history of science, written with integrative intelligence, leavened with deft, humorous biographical characterizations, and punctuated by a series of concluding statements of startling, poetic power. ... Read more

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Explains, in simple terms, how plants make food. ... Read more

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Life on earth depends on the photosynthetic use of solar energy by plants, and efforts to develop alternative sources of energy include a major thrust toward the use of photosynthesis to yield fuels. The study of photosynthesis is an especially convincing way of bringing together the disciplines of physics, chemistry, and biology and can be a valuable element in the teaching of biophysics and biochemistry. This book provides the only detailed modern treatment of the subject in a concise form. Part I outlines the historical development of the subject, emphasizing the chemical nature of photosynthesis and the roles of chlorophylls and other pigments. Part II reviews our present knowledge of the structure and components of photosynthetic tissues in relation to their function. Part III deals with the photo-chemistry of photosynthesis and with the patterns of chemical events, principally electron and proton transfer, that follow the photo-chemistry. Part IV treats the relationships of electron and proton transport to ATP formation, and the metabolic patterns of carbon assimilation. An epilogue exposes major areas of confusion and ignorance and indicates potentially fruitful directions of research, including the development of photosynthetic systems for solar energy conversion. Throughout the book, there are frequent digressions into those aspects of optics and molecular physics relevant to the subject matter. Suitable for upper undergraduate and graduate course use, this book is also sufficiently detailed to give professional scientists a perspective of the subject at the level of contemporary research. ... Read more

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Respiration in plants, as in all living organisms, is essential to provide metabolic energy and carbon skeletons for growth and maintenance. As such, respiration is an essential component of a plant’s carbon budget. Depending on species and environmental conditions, it consumes 25-75% of all the carbohydrates produced in photosynthesis – even more at extremely slow growth rates. Respiration in plants can also proceed in a manner that produces neither metabolic energy nor carbon skeletons, but heat. This type of respiration involves the cyanide-resistant, alternative oxidase; it is unique to plants, and resides in the mitochondria. The activity of this alternative pathway can be measured based on a difference in fractionation of oxygen isotopes between the cytochrome and the alternative oxidase. Heat production is important in some flowers to attract pollinators; however, the alternative oxidase also plays a major role in leaves and roots of most plants. A common thread throughout this volume is to link respiration, including alternative oxidase activity, to plant functioning in different environments.

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This text presents the latest results regarding the environmental effects of depletion of the ozone layer on the geosphere and biosphere. Topics covered include: tropospheric air quality; ozone reduction; solar UB measurements; UV-B mapping; biological effects on humans, animals, plants and aquatic organisms; and predicted implications of a UV-stressed biosphere and geosphere. ... Read more

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This book summarizes the advances made in the last decade in the biophysics, biochemistry, and molecular biology of the enzyme known as Photosystem I, the light-induced plastocyanin: ferredoxin oxidoreductase.

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Phytohormones are closely involved in directing plant growth, coordinating with the metabolism that provides energy and the building blocks to develop the form that we recognize as plant. This book provides information on Salicylic Acid, a chemical that has significant impact on plant life, and could be raised to the status of the phytohormones because of its significant impact on various aspects of the plant life.

Customer Reviews (1)

New technical edition
Always checked out in my university library, so I bought it!
Well done reviews of recent studies of plant hormone-like actions, of aspirin and salicylic acid, with pathways. ... Read more

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Since the first volume on Biophysical Techniques in Photosynthesis Research, published in 1996, new experimental techniques and methods have been devised at a rapid pace. The present book is a sequel which complements the first volume by providing a comprehensive overview of the most important new techniques developed over the past ten years, especially those that are relevant for research on the mechanism and fundamental aspects of photosynthesis.

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Regulation of Photosynthesis provides final yearundergraduates, graduate students and researchers with a state-of-artoverview of regulatory mechanisms governing the development, function,turnover and stress tolerance of the photosynthetic apparatus. Thestructural components of the photosynthetic apparatus are relativelywell known and the next challenge will be to resolve the multitude ofthe regulatory functions occurring in chloroplasts at the molecularlevel.

The book is divided into six sections. The first section gives anoverview of evolution and complexity of thylakoid structure. Thesecond section examines the expression of photosynthesis-relatedgenes, including signal transduction and redox regulation at both thetranscriptional and translational levels. The third section focuses onthe biogenesis, turnover and senescence of the thylakoid pigmentprotein complexes. The fourth section examines crucial regulatorysteps in carbon metabolism including those in theferredoxin-thioredoxin system. Various molecular mechanisms leading toacclimation and stress responses in chloroplasts are reviewed in thefifth section. The sixth section provides examples of novel methodsthat have become available with information obtained from sequencingprograms of photosynthetic organisms and which are now becomingcrucial tools also in the studies of photosynthetic regulation. Thebook is intended for students, teachers and researchers in the fieldof biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, integrative biology,stress biology and plant biology. ... Read more

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2000 copy limited edition ... Read more

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A comprehenive and cutting-edge collection of basic and advanced biochemical techniques for isolating, treating, and analyzing the photosynthetic materials and processes. All protocols follow the successful Methods in Molecular Biology™ series format, each one offering step-by-step laboratory instructions, an introduction outlining the principle behind the technique, lists of equipment and reagents, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. ... Read more