Symposium # 16: Plant Physiological Ecology: Linking the Organism to Scales Above and Below.

Organized by: J.S. Coleman, T. E. Dawson and R.B. Jackson.
Sponsored by: Physiological Ecology Section.
Tuesday, August 8, 2000
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Ballroom I - Cliff Lodge

In 1987, a series of papers on plant physiological ecology were published in BioScience. These seminal papers set forth a set of themes that essentially defined the field and communicated some of the more important questions in need of further research in the decade to come. Since their publication these papers have also helped scientists, graduate students and funding agencies see where the field was headed or needed to head. Over the last 13 years, plant physiological ecology has gradually broadened and diversified beyond these central themes. Today the field is challenged with redefining its goals and future directions; the forthright and concise agenda it set forth in 1987 has evolved and needs to be revisited. This was made painfully clear to Coleman when he ran NSF s Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology program in 1996.

Today, physiological ecologists still hold tightly to the idea that the "organism" remains the cornerstone for all of its investigations. Organisms define the boundary and ultimate product of molecular and cellular processes, the unit of selection, the key elements comprising populations and communities and its is organisms that drive or shape ecosystem functions. Not surprisingly, therefore, scaling-up from organismal level processes to populations, communities and ecosystems and scaling-down to molecular and cellular phenomena as well as over evolutionary time seems to be what, today, best defines where the field is headed.

"Snowbird 2000" is the perfect venue to take a retrospective and prospective look at plant physiological ecology. In our symposium, the ultimate goal is to clearly communicate a future vision of plant physiological ecology to students, scientists, funding agencies and the public. More specifically, this symposium will address the following questions: 1) What path has the field taken to get where it is today, 2) How well did we answer the questions posed in the BioScience series, and 3) What is the path for the future? Our goal is that Snowbird will foster discussion that will culminate with a workshop in 2001, and ultimately a series of papers like those in BioScience that so clearly communicate a scientific agenda.