 |
 |
|
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
|
New websites: >> Department of Environmental Sciences
|
 |
Plant Biology
In Plant Biology we study and teach about a diverse array of phenomena from molecular to ecosystem level. The common denominator is that we are dealing with different aspects of biology of plants and fungi. In addition, anthropogenic effects and global change on species and ecosystems has become an important starting point for most of the current research. Our research topics include plant molecular and cell biology, evolutionary biology and phylogenetic analyses of diverse groups of fungi and plants, plant acclimation to various environments, population and community ecology of plants, and ecosystem ecology.
- Plant Physiology and Developmental Biology - Plant and Fungal Systematics Graduated plant biologists are working in diverse fields ranging from the basic research in the universities and different research institutes of more applied fields of biology (e.g. agriculture, forestry and environment) to jobs in administration and consultation in private sector. As a major, Plant Biology also offers a good basis for teachers at all levels. Feel free to ask more and contact personnel of the Plant Biology. Research Groups of Plant Biology PLANT PHYSIOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY Teaching and research in plant physiology and plant developmental biology covers a large area of plant biology including the following: Developmental regulation of plant structure, growth and reproduction; transport phenomena; plant nutrition, and plant responses to internal and external stimuli such as light, heat, mechanical disturbance and various environmental stress factors against which plants have to defend themselves. The basic laboratory and lecture courses in plant physiology and anatomy are taught in Finnish (with supporting literature in English) but many courses aimed for MSc and PhD students such as the Plant developmental physiology lectures and the practical laboratory course on plant physiology and molecular biology are arranged in English. Numerous special courses with visiting plant physiologists and molecular biologists such as the practical course on Plant Biotechnology and the practical course on Plant stress physiology are organized in collaboration with other disciplines at the Viikki Campus who share our interest in the new findings and methods for the study of e.g. the plant metabolome, signaling and plant developmental events. At the moment research in plant physiology concentrates on various aspects of plant development and environmental stresses. In the Plant stress group of Prof. Jaakko Kangasjärvi the work combines plant physiology with genetics and molecular biology and concentrates on finding out how plants sense and transmit stress signals at the cellular level. The research is concentrated in the molecular mechanisms of abiotic stress responses. The prime interest is the role of reactive oxygen species (ROS) signaling in programmed cell death and its interactions with plant hormones. The plant material includes a large number of Arabidopsis mutants and T-DNA insertion lines and an ecotype collection. A full Arabidopsis genome oligo array and EST collections of birch and Populus are available for transcript profiling.
Research on plant cell wall lignin biosynthesis started in 1998, and concentrates on lignin biosynthesis in developing woody tissue of Norway spruce and Silver birch, both of which are economically important trees in Finland. This topic is studied on the levels of biochemistry, developmental physiology and molecular biology. Methods used include study of enzyme proteins and their corresponding genes by various types of electrophoresis, PCR, light and electron microscopy (confocal fluorescence microscopy, SEM and TEM), proteomics, determination of various enzyme activities and compounds by spectrophotometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry (NMR). Phylogenetic systematics (1,6 Mb pdf- format poster in Finnish) Systematics (or taxonomy), which is the oldest discipline of biology, forms the basis for all comparative biology. The main tasks for systematicians has been to classify, describe and name the biological diversity. Despite its long traditions, systematics has been, however, totally transformed during the last decades and there are four major reasons for this revolution: 1) adoption of cladistic methodology, 2) development of numerical methods and related powerful algorithms, 3) steadily increasing computing resources, and finally 4) recent development in molecular methods that have led to exponential growth of data available for phylogenetic analyses. At precent, classification is based on hypotheses about phylogeny, and phylogenetic analyses are one of the central activities of modern systematics. These analyses are now based on the information in several thousand of characters - ranging from nucleotides to macromorphology features. These analyses may also easily include several hundreds of different terminals. This means, that even when the most sophisticated algorithms are used, parallel computing is a necessity for thorough analyses. Systematics differs from all other fields of biology by being a distinctly historical discipline, and like all other fields of historical research, systematics is a study of historical singularities while biology in general, like most of the natural sciences, is searching for natural laws. The emphasis of systematics in Helsinki has traditionally been, and still is, in systematics of bryophytes, insects and lichenized fungi. The work in systematics is always based on the use of large collections and well-equipped libraries, which is then supplemented by field work when needed. In this respect collections of the Finnish Museum of Natural History with millions of specimens are an essential resource. The basic courses in systematics are taught in Finnish (with supporting literature in English) but courses aimed for PhD students such as Cladistics literature seminar and Systematics seminar are arranged in English. Numerous special courses with visiting systematists such as Ultimate courses on cladistics and molecular systematics have been organized together with the Finnish Museum of Natural History. Phylogenetic systematists studying different organism groups co-operate closely sharing interest on rigorous methods of data analysis in their research. Multidisciplinary studies on the evolution of phototrophs and fungi In addition to creating order and understanding in the existing diversity of organisms, description and classification of plants and fungi is intimately linked to evolution - the processes by which biodiversity has evolved and is maintained. Cladistic methods can produce rigorous hypotheses of phylogenetic relationships. These are valuable in their own right, but become even more interesting when introduced to question-driven fields of science, such as evolutionary biology.
Plant ecology studies the interactions of plants with their environment, both biotic and abiotic. Within Plant biology plant ecology is divided into three sub-disciplines based on the organisation level at which the biological systems are investigated. In physiological plant ecology the interactions of plants and their environment are studied with an explicit consideration of physiological processes of the plants. In these studies a mechanistic approach to plant ecology is taken, i.e. explanations to ecological phenomena are sought at the physiological level. Plant survival during various stresses (extreme temperatures, herbivory) is a typical research theme within physiological plant ecology. These studies are close to the discipline of plant physiology, and for this reason the concept of ecophysiology is often used to refer to this sub-discipline. In plant population and community ecology physiological details are less considered, and the focus is on issues like interactions between species and the overall adaptive strategy of each species. For instance, when studying the competition between two plant species the effects of environmental factors on the growth and reproduction of the plants is taken into account with the aid of aggregated multipliers in equations describing competition. In vegetation ecology the approach to plant community ecology is quite near to that of classical plant geography. In ecosystem ecology a still more aggregated approach is taken. Quite often even the individual species are not explicitly considered when studying the ecosystem level phenomena, i.e. flow of energy and cycling of nutrients. In the curriculum of Plant biology all these three sub-disciplines of plant ecology are addressed. This is also the case in PhD degrees earned in Plant biology, as many of our graduate-students who work outside the University are addressing several very different aspects of plant ecology. In our own research at the department we are, however, more specialised. Since the establishment of the Plant biology major, our strategy has been to concentrate on physiological plant ecology in the framework of assessing the ecological effects of global change. In this way, useful synergy with plant physiology is obtained. In addition, population and vegetation ecology are represented among our research themes. |
